CHAPTER 97

"Mother." Kuroyuki’s prodding roused Sasaki from her inner contemplation.

The swordswoman looked up and around, surprised. Kuroyuki had set up a suitable camp while Sasaki was mentally kicking herself in the ass over her failures.

How had she done that, all on her own? Sasaki wondered, but pushed it out of her mind. A firepit was dug, lined with stones, and a campfire was burning comfortably. Their bedrolls were spread out; a pile of firewood was close to keep the campfire burning; both horses were tethered, their feedbags snugged over their muzzles.

"...thanks, Kuro." She offered, and stood up.

"It was no trouble at all. ‘A proper woman will tend to her responsibilities, no matter the situation’, I believe is what is said." the woman replied, hands folded properly at her waist.

Sasaki looked over Kuroyuki with a critical eye. Not a speck of dirt marred her kimono, no scratches or scrapes marred her hands. How had she managed?

"We let that thing get away." Sasaki complained, eyeing the fire. Was there something in her gear they could cook? Their choice in trail rations were dried meat, hardtack, and a granola of grains, oats, raisins, and nuts, cemented with honey, compressed and cut into blocks. Sasaki had intentionally avoided the ubiquitous Traveler’s Soup, which was nearly universally loathed.

Traveler’s Soup was a foodstuff that contained meat, vegetables, grains, and herbs encased in a thick waxy block of animal fat. All you needed to do was boil it in a pot of water. Boiling the block released the ingredients, creating an edible stew, but the overwhelming amount of grease made it revoltingly unpalatable.

Still, something hot would have been a treat; something to warm the insides as much as the fire warmed her skin.

Sasaki blinked and eyed her arms; the burns from the lizard were gone. She cautiously touched her face.

"I took the liberty of tending to you while you slept, mother." Kuroyuki informed her, with a graceful bow far more suited for a Yamato estate than the backwoods they found themselves in. "Also, you should be pleased to note that ... thing did not survive its encounter with you." She offered.

Sasaki jerked her head up at that. "What?" she exclaimed, baffled.

"It’s dead." Kuroyuki replied simply.

"It certainly seemed very much alive." Sasaki retorted. "How do you know that, anyway? The last I saw; it was jumping from tree to tree." She asked as she sat herself near the fire.

Kuroyuki knelt gracefully, seating herself as if the surrounding forest were A nobleman’s estate.

"I followed it." She offered this little tidbit as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "You inflicted some mortal wounds, enough so that following its trail of blood was easy for someone as inexperienced as I." She bowed respectfully towards Sasaki.

Sasaki rose to her feet, unconsciously touching the gun in her belt as she shouldered her sword. "Show me."

Kuroyuki led the way, which wasn’t far from the campsite. The fire-breathing lizard hadn’t made it far at all; Kuroyuki’s assessment was right. Blood was liberally splashed here and there in a gaudy trail, and the thing had managed only four or perhaps five tree-to-tree leaps before falling to its death. Curiously, Sasaki could see it had landed on its back. As she got closer, she understood why.

It had been cut open, almost clinically so. There was a long gash that opened it from throat to groin on its underside. There were similar long cuts along its limbs, the skin and flesh peeled back and held in place with wooden spikes.

"Did- Did you do this, Kuro?" Sasaki asked uncomfortably, and the young woman nodded. "I told you, I want to learn about the world, mother." She replied simply.

Her voice adopted a clinical tone as she gestured to the creature at various points. "This lizard takes in living matter and digests it in a way that generates a significant amount of flammable gas, which is stored in air bladders similar to fish, and ignited in the mouth on release."

Sasaki hunkered down and eyed where Kuroyuki was pointing, and once again mentally kicked herself. If she’d pierced the thing instead of slashing at it, it would have deflated those gasbags. Void take her, if she’d just shot the fucker, it likely would have caused it to explode.

Sasaki rose to her feet, adjusted the gun at her waist, and shouldered her sword. "Interesting." She muttered flatly, and then to Kuroyuki, "Let’s get back to camp and get some food in us." She eyed the sky through the branches. Was it past midday?

Kuroyuki surprised Sasaki a second time by revealing she’d picked up a small metal teapot at some point when they were getting supplies, and produced a pair of cups as well as some fairly good tea, so they ate a little rations, washed it down with tea, and continued down the road towards Apopka.

As they travelled, Sasaki tried to remember everything about Apopka, though she’d only passed it by and investigated it out of curiosity more than a year before.

The trail was overgrown; she remembered that much. She couldn’t recall whether or not the place had a proper fence between it and the woods, though it made sense to her that there should be. Why wouldn’t you want nice, sturdy walls between you and whatever beasts and monsters and abominations happened to be cruising around your neck of the woods? Yamato was pacified, they no longer had any problems with such things, but the continent of Hesperia was largely unmapped and unexplored.

The buildings were slightly higher than the ground, proof against the yearly rains that turned everything into an ocean of mud. The buildings were all connected by raised boardwalks, and were arranged in a sort of semicircle. She couldn’t remember much more than that. Was there a mine? What sort of mine was it? Well, she’d find out eventually.

At the same time that Kuro pointed it out, Sasaki had seen it as well; the wooden sign mostly swallowed by the ravages of neglect and time.

As Sasaki prepared to dismount, she suddenly remembered Katarina stepping into the stirrup and swinging her leg over the horse. Dismounting was a simple reversal of the process, and she wouldn’t kick her horse in the neck. Sasaki swung down from the horse awkwardly, and examined the overgrown path.

"I think we should go in on foot." She decided, gesturing to a tree that’d fallen across the path. The horses would have some trouble with that.

This forest was different than the forests of Yamato; here it was dense forest of pine with the occasional break of boarswood.

Boarswood was prized; it was a dense, fine-grained wood like ash, didn’t burn easily, and in the proper hands, could be made into all sorts of things, including a lightweight armor. Sasaki had heard that the Forest Wardens, local militias that patrolled from village to village, often used boarswood armor.

As she helped her horse over the fallen tree, Sasaki considered her plan. Should she burn the village to the ground, first? Should she use it as a camp to stash the horses and supplies while she cleared out the mine? She glanced back at Kuroyuki, who was patiently waiting for her turn to guide her horse over the fallen tree. Should Kuroyuki stay in the village while Sasaki cleared the mine? Should she take Kuro into the mine with her? The way she’d cut open that lizard was certainly unpleasant to think about. She didn’t even have a sword, which meant that Kuroyuki had cut the thing apart with her belt knife.

The only way to be sure of Kuroyuki’s safety was to take her into the mine alongside.

What could take up residence in a mine? Bears, she supposed. She could handle a bear. Did wolves live in caves? Wasn’t there some other animal that lived in caves? In Yamato, the Great Cats they used as mounts used to live in caves until they were domesticated. Ah, to have a Great Cat here in Hesperia! But no. No Yamato would ever countenance taking a Great Cat overseas. Besides, they were way more comfortable than a horse.

She shook her head of distracting thoughts as Kuroyuki’s horse scrambled over the fallen tree, with the girl herself a few steps behind.

"The last time I was here, it was abandoned; but it might not be that way now." Sasaki muttered, eyeing a swath of spidersilk hanging from the branches of a tree. It was practically as big as a blanket. She wasn’t sure if it’d been there the last time she was here, but it raised the hairs on the back of her neck and made her recall the fight with the giant spider in the crypt beneath Aston. She immediately crouched, pulling Kuroyuki down with her, and catching her eye, held a finger across her lips to indicate silence.

Sasaki eased down the road slowly, carefully, watching her footing so that she didn’t make a sound. Kuroyuki followed after loosely securing the reins of the horses to the trunk of the fallen tree. Sasaki became painfully aware of how persistently quiet everything around her was. No birds, no insects, no animals scampering through the underbrush, no chattering of squirrels or chipmunks. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

Sasaki carefully planted her back against a tree, and scanned around, and in a moment of inspiration, glanced up. More spiderwebs hanging from the branches and leaves. Her mouth twisted in disgust. Spiders. It wouldn’t be much further to the village, she reasoned, but couldn’t see any sort of fence or wall that was characteristic of a village. She crept forward, trying to see everywhere at once, pausing every few steps to carefully examine her surroundings.

A shrill scream erupted from the village ahead; the ground vibrated with a staccato of vibrations; Sasaki immediately crouched behind a tree, Kuroyuki a scant second behind her.

"Get out here, thing!" A voice yelled, and then screeched again. "We know you’re not our kin!"

Sasaki peeked around the bole of the tree and her face contorted in an expression of shock and disgust.

There were three of them. Giant things, like spiders, glossy black with patches of gray. But growing out from their bodies were almost humanlike torsos with grey skin. They had long, elflike ears and shockingly white hair. She’d heard of centaurs before but spiders?

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Three of them. That chitinous carapace looked hard, like stone.

One of them, their leader by the way he carried himself, hurled a spear at one of the buildings.

"Out! Out!" He screamed. "Face us if you dare, thing! I’ll slay you myself!"

A fourth slipped out of the building and clattered to the ground. That was the vibrations she’d felt earlier; human-spider monstrosities strutting around with six legs apiece.

This did not look good and it was getting worse by the second.

"You look like us, you smell like us, but I know you’re not one of us at all!" The leader screamed.

Sasaki could see the fourth’s face. It was lifeless, lacking any sort of animation. The eyes looked glazed over, the face was slack and expressionless.

Suddenly, the flesh on its face seemed to contort, churn, as if something boiled beneath the surface. The skin split, and bulbous red eyes burst from the thing’s face in a cluster, the thing’s jaw sagged open, split at the middle, swung away, and a long tongue covered in suckers like an octopus’ tentacles slithered out and hung halfway down its chest, which was beginning to writhe and churn as well.

"You see?!" The leader screamed. "That is not one of us!" He raised the spear handed to him by one of his followers, and lunged forward to spear the fourth through the heart.

The fourth’s chest burst open, the ribs springing apart. A whirl of writhing, claw-tipped tentacles erupted from the fourth’s chest, lashing out, whiplike, grabbing the leader, puncturing through him, and relentlessly dragged him into the gnashing maw that was the fourth’s chest cavity.

One of the others screamed, and speared the fourth from the side; as the fourth relentlessly grasped and bit and chewed at the leader’s body. Blood fountained everywhere. The other simply stood in apparent shock; whatever it was they had planned; it wasn’t for this horror. The fourth had pulled most of the leader’s torso into itself; the leader was apparently still alive; his legs dug and flailed at the ground.

The fourth let out a dull, atonal bestial howl as two more fleshy tendrils erupted from its body and cracked out like whips, each unerringly seeking its prey in the other two spider-centaurs. Both struck home; Sasaki could only watch in mute horror as the tendrils pulsed and churned as they drew life from their victims, burrowing deeper and deeper into their bodies.

The thick tentacles suddenly quivered, and then retracted. The two slumped over, lifeless. The fourth continued its grotesque digestion of the leader, tendrils and tentacles wrapping around legs, breaking them, snapping them off.

The other two suddenly stirred to life, and rose unsteadily to their feet, faces slack and expressionless. They moved about listlessly as the fourth digested its prey.

"By the Golden Lady and all She holds dear." Sasaki whispered. "By the Rings. By the Empress." How could she beat something so foul, so disgusting, so relentlessly horrific?

She reflexively gripped her sword, and her training forcibly cramped her lungs to take normal breaths; her heart squeezed as if clenched in a fist.

Sasaki had been taught the sword in the old way, in the hopes that it would bring discipline to her fiery heart. Hypnotic incense had opened her mind, made it malleable to suggestion and command.

When you take up your sword, know only calm. Her body unconsciously forced itself to obey, to fight against the terror, the spike of adrenaline that was freezing her guts and spitting bile at the back of her throat. A warrior is a hurricane; a true warrior waits in the eye, in the calm of the storm, with patience and deliberation to unleash his violence at the right stroke, at the moment of heartbeat, when the sun kisses the steel through the rain.

""I am the blade." She whispered, as if in prayer. "I am the sword. The sword knows no fear. The sword knows no doubt. The sword knows no hesitation."

"Mother, no." Kuroyuki warned, putting her hand on Sasaki’s shoulder. "This isn’t a thing that can be fought with steel."

Sasaki jerked at Kuroyuki’s voice. She’d been- She’d been almost... buried inside herself, in the heart of her training, preparing to- She paused. Spears obviously didn’t work on that thing. What good would a sword do?

"It seems to replicate itself, Mother." Kuroyuki pointed out. "Whatever those things were, they are no longer things that could be defeated by blade alone, it seems."

"What do you expect me to use, harsh language?" Sasaki hissed at her daughter.

Kuroyuki gave her a nonplussed look.

"Fire, mother." She suggested. "Or perhaps magic. Whatever those things are, they must be completely destroyed."

But her gun was short-ranged, and she only had two shots to begin with. It would take time to reload, too. There were three of those things. Who knew how many shots it would take to kill them?

"...set the village on fire?" She suggested. Kuroyuki shrugged. "It might work if they were trapped within one of the buildings." She mused. "But they could flee. Think of the devastation those things could wreak if they reached a town, or a city, replicating as we’ve seen."

Sasaki’s mouth sagged open with shock and horror at the implication her daughter offered as if it were no consequence, quietly discussing the disposition of the weather.

"I don’t know any magic." Sasaki admitted. "My techniques do not encompass destroying something like that." She rolled her eyes. "Further, they’re not magical at all, but forcing the weapon to behave beyond the natural." She argued.

"Shall I destroy them for you, mother?" Kuroyuki asked then, eyes on the three creatures that now tore at the remaining scraps of the one that had been devoured.

"You-" Sasaki began, and then lowered her voice. She turned back to Kuroyuki, who was once more removing her necklace. She handed the long purple gem to Sasaki.

"Remember, mother: This is my soul, but I was born from your flesh. I am your daughter; I will fight as you direct." Sasaki suddenly lost the strength in keeping herself upright and she sagged in a faint.

Kuroyuki eyed her unconscious mother. Sasaki was unaware of what Kuroyuki was. In some ways, Kuroyuki herself did not understand what she was. She simply was. All she knew of herself was what she had learned from attentively watching others, and the knowledge she’d gained from her own birth from Sasaki herself.

She knew she was something more, but what it was, she couldn’t say. She thirsted for more contact with others, other people, other beings, other living things so that she might understand herself, her own nature, and her place in the world. Sasaki didn’t know or understand magic. It was not something Sasaki was capable of. The Diviner, Araya, had more in common with Sasaki than Kuroyuki did; their powers stemmed from the mind, not from the arcane.

Kuroyuki, however, seemed to understand she had an affinity with the arcane. She’d seen a mage light candles in the church, and it resonated with her. She knew what it was. But the mage was weak, fumbling at powers where he should have commanded. Kuroyuki eyed the three abominations, and then considered her mother.

Sasaki would likely be prey to them, or perhaps a host, something no longer her mother. She weighed the risks and consequences. Sasaki could try to defeat them. She was a formidable woman, the strongest Kuroyuki had ever known. A limitation on her part to be sure, Kuroyuki was less than a year old. Sasaki could try and set them on fire. Her weapon was certainly capable of such a thing. Would it be enough?

Kuroyuki rose to her feet. Fire, she thought. First I’ll try fire and then see what happens.

Sasaki came to only moments after she’d fainted. She quickly glanced around and gaped. The three abominations were torches, seething and popping. One of the buildings in the village was on fire.

Sasaki scrambled to her feet, searching for Kuroyuki. As she scrambled to her feet, she dropped the gem Kuroyuki had put in her hand. It tumbled to the ground and lay in the soil, catching the last of the sunlight, seemingly pulsing with its own warm inner light. She scooped up the necklace and hurriedly put it on, tucking the crystal into her sarashi. But where was Kuroyuki? Sasaki dashed into the village, eyes scanning everywhere.

She passed one of the smoldering corpses and she flinched back from it, and ran into Kuroyuki. They tangled together, and Sasaki twisted, using a move from her training to maintain her footing.

"Kuroyuki! What happened?" Sasaki demanded.

"My apologies mother, it seems it’s gotten away from me." Kuroyuki replied, and Sasaki whirled, her sword out in an eyeblink, eyes flicking for targets.

"Where is it?" Sasaki asked, and Kuroyuki sighed. "The fire. Those things are quite dead, it appears."

Sasaki stepped back and sheathed her sword. "Oh. Right." She remarked distractedly. "The fire. It got away from you."

She eyed the three burning corpses. "They’re dead?" She asked, and Kuroyuki nodded.

"Disgusting things." She remarked, and Kuroyuki nodded again.

The thing that had devoured the others suddenly spasmed and erupted, and a fleshy thing that looked like a spider with a rat’s body tried to crawl away from it.

"Oh no you don’t." Sasaki warned, and pulling her gun, she gave it both barrels.

The gunshots startled her; she nearly pissed herself. Katarina’s gun had cracked like a bolt of thunder; this one roared with the fury of a drake and each shot fired a cone of brilliant flame and searingly bright sparks sixty feet long and fifteen feet wide. The recoil itself jarred her wrist like it was about to shatter. What was left of the strange vermin the thing had birthed was a furiously burning smear of blood.

"My compliments, mother." Kuroyuki praised, rubbing her ears. "I hadn’t expected it to be so loud."

"What?" Sasaki yelled, cupping a hand around her ear, which throbbed and rang.

"I said-" Kuroyuki began, and then stopped. She could barely hear herself.

The fire was spreading to one of the other buildings as Sasaki reloaded.

"Well, we were supposed to purify the village with fire", she muttered, completely unable to hear herself.

She broke open the gun and the bass-caps of the shells fell out. Sasaki reloaded and snapped the gun closed. She stepped back away from the corpses towards Kuroyuki; she didn’t want to take her eyes off of them.

She snatched a glance at Kuroyuki. "You sure they’re dead?" She asked, and Kuroyuki snapped her fingers; the things flared alight again; Sasaki stepped back from the sudden heat that pressed against her skin.

"I’m certain now." Kuroyuki replied, but Sasaki couldn’t hear her, her ears were still ringing as if they’d been soundly boxed.

She gestured at herself, then at Kuroyuki, and then back the way they came, and then headed back towards the road after sparing the charred things that were crumbling to ash another revolted, fearful look.

Eventually, her ears stopped ringing. "Gared should have warned me." She complained, and Kuroyuki arched an eyebrow.

"To be certain." She agreed. "What is our next step?" Kuroyuki asked, looking to her mother for direction.

"Well, our mission is to ‘cleanse the place with sword and fire’." Sasaki reported. "The village, and the mine. "We’ll need to make sure that the village is completely burned to the ground."

She grimaced. "Spiders lay eggs, don’t they?" She muttered.

"It is as you say, mother." Kuroyuki agreed. "So, we’re to burn all the buildings?" She asked, and Sasaki nodded. "That’s the plan. Also, there’s supposed to be a mine nearby. We need to make sure it’s clear as well, so that they can rebuild the village and reopen the mine."

"Ah. I see." Kuroyuki replied.

"Kuroyuki..." Sasaki began, and then stopped. She eyed the younger girl. "What did you do?"

Kuroyuki eyed her mother’s curious, but faintly accusatory gaze.

"I thought I’d try fire." She replied. "And see what happened next."

"Riiiight". Sasaki agreed doubtfully. "And they just ... let you set them on fire?" She asked, pressing for more details.

Kuroyuki studied her hands as she considered her answer. "I wouldn’t say that they let me, considering how they tried to escape." She decided, "But they didn’t see me, so they weren’t able to stop me." She looked up at Sasaki. "Did I behave inappropriately?" She bowed her head.

Sasaki, like everyone else, had a fear and dislike of mages. There were rumors that Shrine Maidens used magic, but Sasaki didn’t know for certain, and the affairs of Shrine Maidens were none of her business, anyway.

But Kuroyuki- She wasn’t sure what Kuroyuki was. She certainly seemed human, but a human didn’t grow from an infant to a fully cognizant and literate sixteen-year-old girl in a day. In every respect she behaved like a proper, well-mannered daughter. Kuroyuki wanted her to believe that she was her daughter.

She decided to put her trust in Kuroyuki. She remembered back to what Kuroyuki had said earlier, about wanting to see and learn about the world. Perhaps the answers to Sasaki’s questions would reveal themselves the longer they were together.