Tsu heard a groan from behind him as Gosha started to wake up. The boy moved around a bit where he had been tied to the horse.

“Hey, what the?” Gosha tried to spurt out some words but Tsu made his horse sidestep and disrupted him, “Stop it! Why am I tied up back here.”

Tsu just continued riding, ignoring the writhing behind him and stream of protests coming from the boy.

“Just hold on a bit longer Gosha, I’ll let you down in a moment,” he said trying to console the lad, “I had to do something with you, and I needed to move. We couldn’t wait around there any longer, never know what might have happened.

As I said, I plan on taking you to a place where you can train. But to get you there we need to do a bit of travelling. I don’t really want to be babysitting a snot nosed brat like yourself for too long, so I moved. Besides, more of those Gemteks might show up, and I don’t want to have to deal with yet.

We have a stop to make, and we’re nearly there. There’s a rise coming up, and once we get on top I’ll let you down. From there we will walk to the town. You’ve been passed out for a while, so I made some good time. Sorry if any parts are bruised though, I couldn’t really help it. Horses aren’t exactly the best mode of transport when you aren’t sitting on them. Even then it becomes questionable…”

Tsu just let his words trail off as he continued to move his horse at a steady canter, even as Gosha grunted and complained. The boy would be bruised when he got off the horse, but that was his fault for falling unconscious. Slowly they climbed the rise in the road and Tsu pulled his horse to the side and dismounted.

Untying the rope he grabbed onto Gosha and lifted him off the horse and placed him on his feet. Suddenly Gosha gasped as the pain from the ride went to overwhelm him again. He leant forward and grabbed onto Tsu’s armoured shoulder.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said when he noticed Tsu’s concerned look, “but on top of everything else that happened today I think I’ve now got broken ribs and bruised thighs.”

“Yesterday.”

“What?”

“You’ve been out for about half a day, if not more. We’re now quite a ways from your home town. You’ve been asleep the whole time.”

“I suppose that does explain why my body feels broken and my legs refuse to work.”

“Probably a good thing we are walking to town then. Let’s get a move on, shouldn’t take us too long to get down there.”

The two of them led the horse along the road again as the landscape before them started to open out. The plains flowed everywhere from the small hill, and the dirt road snaked down between various crops and grazing land as it made its way towards the city in the distance.

Gosha was amazed, he had never seen a city this big. He had barely left the town, and they had only ever gone as far as the trading point to drop off the crops they had harvested. And most times the buyers came to them. But this city was many times bigger than his home town, or even the trading point.

At the end of the road a wall rose up, surrounding the city that sprawled along the edge of the lake that Gosha was beginning to notice. The city was divided up into sections that were easy to tell apart even from the distance he was seeing it at. The first section where the road led too looked like his town, only bigger and more tightly packed, roads everywhere and wooden buildings the norm. The mouth of a river split this part from the next part, which was much more… white. The buildings seemed to be spaced further apart and bits of green could be seen between the buildings, alluding to gardens. Overall that part looked much cleaner than the first.

The final section of the city, if it even was part of the city, was what appeared to be a number of boats of all sizes linked together by bridges and platforms. People were rushing around everywhere on it and appeared to be little more than ants, a scurrying mass. Tsu saw where Gosha was looking.

“Ah, yes. That’s like a floating city in itself. It is part of the main city and not at the same time. But the same could be said for the other parts. They all view themselves as being a separate community. But the ships have come from all over. They are made to work the rivers and come from Silda, even Cesyga. I think maybe even the desert nation of Yssingar has a boat or two in there, that they raised up the cliffs and put onto the rivers. Would have been an amazing thing to see.”

People were gathered along the road and the throng seemed to increase as they got closer to the gates. Everyone was still moving though, just congesting a bit as people were trying to get in and out of the gates at the same time. It didn’t stop flowing though, just slowed.

The two of them eventually passed under the gates and moved the horse to a little bit of space off to the side so they could stop for a minute.

“Well Gosha,” Tsu said waving his hands around himself dramatically, “welcome to the city of Crossing. Melting pot of cultures and trade, most likely the biggest trading city in Inundail. Only the Kingdom of Crescent rivals it in trade, but their whole country is built on trade, and their whole country is a single city, so it’s to be expected.

But don’t get too comfortable. We won’t be here for long. We’ll stay for a bit and let you recover a little. I’ll grab you a few things to make life easier, and then we’ll be on our way. Probably take another day or two to get to the place we’re headed.”

“And where’s that?”

“Oh no, not telling you that yet. Don’t need you running away from me. If I have to track you down you won’t be going there in style…” Tsu looked at Gosha’s face as it got darker, “Kidding little man, kidding. The place is nice… enough. Nice enough. Just stick with me and you’ll be fine.”

Tsu started to lead his horse through the town again, not giving Gosha a chance to have a good look around except for the fact that most of the buildings were made of wood. Suddenly Gosha saw Tsu pause for a moment, then swear, then start off in another direction, taking smaller side roads this time and moving much quicker.

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“Is there a problem Tsu?”

“Yes… No… I don’t know,” he said in a hurried breath, “Just keep follow me and keep your head down a bit more. Don’t get lost.”

They continued through the winding streets and it didn’t take long for Gosha to completely lose himself. He knew there was no way he would be able to find his way back now. He just kept walking, keeping his head down and holding onto the side of the saddle so he didn’t lose where the horse was going. Suddenly the horse stopped though and Gosha nearly tripped over.

He raised his head and saw that they had reached a stable of some sort. Tsu was flipping a coin over to a sleepy stable hand that was just emerging from a stall. The coin was grabbed with deft skill and pocketed quickly.

“Let me just take your horse off you good sir,” he said as he came to grab the reigns, then led her off into a stall towards the back. Tsu watched for a while and nodded with a glum smile as he saw his steed getting a good brush down.

Tsu grabbed Gosha around the shoulders and led him inside the doors of the inn. Gosha saw the sign just before he was ushered inside, a picture of a fire place with a bright red fire in it proclaiming this inn to be the Raging Hearth. Gosha got chills for a moment.

Tsu directed him to a table out of the way of the small number of patrons that were in the inn and took himself off to to speak with the owner. He reached his hand out and gave the big burly man who was behind the bar a warriors handshake, grasping each other’s forearm.

“How goes the travels Tsu?” The man seemed to boom as he cleaned glasses.

“I can’t really complain, Fernor, how goes the innkeeping business?”

“Ah, much the same, much the same. Things just ebb and flow around here. Been a bit of a stir these past few cycles though, what with all the trouble at the tower,” Fernor raised an eyebrow and glanced at Gosha sitting silently at the table.

Both of them lowered their voices.

“Yeah, I saw the posters on the way in. I didn’t realise they would act that quickly.”

“A beehive has been kicked, and kicked hard. What happened?”

“Fernor, you don’t really want to know. You’ve probably heard a little though. What are they saying? I didn’t get time to stop and look at the poster.”

“They say that a child has broken into a Tower and destroyed the crystal. You and I know that is impossible, I don’t know what they are playing at with that. But they went on to say that when the Gemteks went to investigate they were attacked and killed, they don’t say the boy did it, but they do say he is a wanted witness as to what actually happened. They say he may be dangerous.”

Tsu let out a guffaw that he barely covered with his hand.

“Before things go too far Fernor, since you and I are friends, I want you to know some things. Firstly, yes, the boy was there, but no, he didn’t do anything to the guards. He’s fainted any number of times so far, there’s no way he could have done anything to Gemteks. Secondly though, from what he tells me, Koji was there.”

Fernor reached forward and grabbed Tsu’s hand tightly and put a finger to his lips to quieten him.

“No, no. That’s bad. That’s never good. Enough of that for now, get to your room. Take the boy and keep him up there,” Fernor dropped a key in front of Tsu quickly and ushered him over to the stairs, grabbing a surprised Gosha on the way.

Once inside the room Tsu motioned for Gosha to sit again.

“Fernor, we’ll just be staying a short while. I just need to grab some stuff from the markets for him, and then we’ll be on our way. He’s a little bruised and battered though, so I’ll let him rest here for now.”

“Oh boy Tsu. If Koji is involved with this then nothing good will come of it. Why did Koji spare the boy if he was there too?”

“I’m not really sure, but I think Koji might be interested in him for some reason. In fact, I think I know the reason, but I don’t want to talk about it. Better that you don’t know.”

“What are you going to do with him?”

Gosha just stared back and forth between them as the conversation continued.

“I’m going to take him to the Knights. They’ll be able to protect him for a while.”

“Oh, Tsu, that is a good idea. The Knight’s stronghold is quite secure, and he’ll be able to learn some skills. I just hope they don’t cause him any problems like they caused you…”

“He’ll be fine, and I’ll get him away from there before it can become an issue.”

“You must be off to the market then. Make it quick,” Fernor turned to Gosha and looked him over, “bruised and battered, you obviously need a rest, but is there anything else I can get for you?”

Gosha looked at him blankly, not really understanding what was going on around him.

“Maybe some answers would be nice?”

“Food it is then, I’ll be back with a meal for you,” Fernor ignored the request and quickly moved off out of the room to get Gosha a light meal while Tsu unceremoniously dumped his pack on the bed.

“Gosha, stay here for now. It seems the Gemteks have posted wanted posters around town, and I can’t have people finding out who you are. I do hope you didn’t get noticed by anyone on the way here. But anyway, I need to get some stuff, you’ve got nothing. I’ll be back shortly.”

Tsu walked out the door and quickly exited the inn. He knew where the markets were and it didn’t take him too long to get there, but the cycles were moving around through the towers. He couldn’t take too long, because the longer he waited the more likely there were to be issues.

Quickly he went through the market, grabbing bits and pieces as he went. Clothes here, shoes there, a cloak. He stopped for a while in front of a weapons stall. The man behind the stall certainly wasn’t a blacksmith, and the wares certainly weren’t of good quality, but they were cheap. Gosha didn’t need a good weapon, but any weapon would help him start to learn to protect himself.

Tsu reached for a shortsword and picked it up. The weight wasn’t bad, Gosha might not be used to using one but his blood would let him pick it up quickly. He handed across a few coins and then looked at the time. It was wasting away. He left the markets as quickly as he could and made his way back to the inn.

Upon walking through the door an unsettling feeling fell across him. The taproom was empty except for Fernor standing behind the bar, head in hands.

"We’re shut,” he called out without looking up.

Tsu moved inside quietly and made his way to the bar. He gingerly placed a small bag of coins beside Fernor arm and whispered to him.

“Did they come for the boy?”

“Oh, Tsu,” he looked up, worry creasing his face, “No, no. Worse than that. Your friend is here…”

Tsu dropped another small bag of coins on the bar.

“I hope this will cover the damages.”

Slinging the items he had acquired from the market over his shoulder he silently headed up the stairs to the door, where he proceeded to kick it in. It flew off its hinges and smashed into the wall opposite, sliding down to reveal a now broken window behind it.

Gosha was tied to a chair on one side of the room, well out of the way of where the door came through. He has gagged too and was trying to make muffled sounds of warning. Opposite him were sitting two people, making themselves at home on the bed, a mug of drink in hand and picking at the food that had been brought for Gosha.

The older one was instantly recognisable by Tsu. He was a tall man, well built, flowing brown hair, and a smile that made your skin crawl. Tsu and he were old acquaintances, from the Knights. The two of them didn’t get on well, especially since Tsu had left the Knight’s but he hadn’t. He was always trying to get Tsu to rejoin.

“Hello Ralphas,” Tsu said to the man with venom in his voice.

Ralphas took another swig of his drink.

“You took your time Tsu. Fernor said you wouldn’t be long. I’m already on my second tankard though.”

“I take it this isn’t a friendly visit?”

“Is it ever? But I was just planning on waiting up here for you, when I spied you coming through the gates earlier, and was surprised to find you with a wanted fugitive. The Gemteks say they will pay a pretty penny for that boy over there,” he motioned towards Gosha with his tankard.

“Don’t touch him, Ralph, I’m taking him to the Knights.”

“Oh? Oh! Well, just so happens I’m headed that way too. Found them a new promising pupil,” Ralphas nodded towards a slender boy who was sitting next to him, the boy never moved an inch, his eyes, deep in their sockets, focused on Gosha. It was a little unnerving.

“His name is Densin. I found him on the Darkward end of Inundail. He’s a fire element like myself, but if trained properly I think he’ll be much stronger than me some day, he shows promise,” he motioned at the chair with Gosha again, “What about him? Do you know what his element is? Nature like yours?”

Tsu slowly moved into the room, edging closer to the bed where his sword lay and closer to where Gosha was tied.

“No, Ralph, I do not know. I haven’t checked him.”

“And you’re planning on taking him to the Knight’s anyway? You can’t be serious there Tsu,” he stood, placed his tankard down, and rolled his shoulder with an audible crack, “But you see, I kind of don’t want you to take him there anyway. Densin will get there, but this boy wont. Then they’ll start thinking higher of me, bringing them such a promising new student. And I’ll take the boy in for the reward. They won’t keep talking about you then, they’ll have to stop.”

Slowly Tsu reached for his longsword at the same time as Ralphas was calmly drawing his. Densin still had not moved from his spot, a watchful eye on Gosha only, not even seeming to notice the tension in the air around him. Gosha struggled in the chair weakly, but there was little he could do now.

“I’m sick of them always talking about the prodigy Tsu. Tsu the great, Tsu the good. Best swordsman they have ever seen grace their walls. I am sick of hearing about you. I am sick of it, and I will end it now!” Ralphas spat out the last words as he readied himself with his sword.

“Fine then,” Tsu said calmly, taking his own stance, “I just hope I gave Fernor enough coins to cover this…”