CHAPTER TWO—FROM THE HILLS

He had lost is katana. Still regretting it, even now, Shiro followed Debaku thought the dark night out of the sandy hills and into the grassy turfs under the trees.

Still in the foothills, Ghogha Prison lay just beyond.

Within the walls, Shiro could see the guards in their black pantaloons and red sashes. They patrolled with lamps, and in the yard they were roasting a goat on a spit over a crackling fire, laughing, dueling for fun, and going about their other routines.

Debaku trudged forward down the hills in plain sight. The guards on the walls hadn’t spotted him yet. “Debaku!” Shiro hissed. “What are you doing?”

Turning, he glanced at Shiro with a perplexed look. “It is nightfall. We attack.”

“But… like this?”

He nodded firmly, raised his face covering and ran to a palm tree on the edge of the cliff side. Where the prison structures met the mountains, there were new walls. But a large portion did not form into the mountain, and there was a narrow gap between the grassy hill and the prison wall.

Debaku unsheathed his scimitar and slashed the base of the palm tree. Shiro cocked his head, realizing that his slash had almost severed the tree completely, but fell short somewhat.

Shiro quickly saw that this was to Dabaku’s advantage, as the fibers would keep the tree intact but not so much so as to make it hard to manipulate to his own ends.

Debaku pushed on the tree and it cracked and groaned. When it fell over the green leafy fronts crashed into the path atop the wall.

This is why he is famous, Shiro thought. I could not have—

Shiro was distracted when the guard closest to Debaku turned and started screaming. “Take up your swords! Attackers! Attackers!”

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He raised his bow and loosed an arrow at the Black Cobra of Mar’a Thul. The top-tier adventurer raised his scimitar and deflected the projectile easily, then he cut open the guard from shoulder to hip in one solid slash.

The man screamed and fell off the wall.

Shiro lunged forward across the palm tree, almost losing his balance as he followed Debaku. Once he was atop the wall, he ran toward the tower near the gate.

An arrow came at him, but he turned his shoulders and the shaft missed. As the men in the yard yelled, their weapons in their hands, the warning bells started tolling.

Shiro climbed the ladder up the tower—it was a short climb—and when he got to the top, the guard tried to split his skull with his scimitar, but the samurai blocked the blow with his own blade.

Then Shiro dropped his sword and grabbed the guard by the front of his tunic and pulled him over the side. He screamed, falling past Shiro and landing heavily on the wall.

Shiro climbed into the tower and picked up the bow that was left behind. He knocked an arrow and shot it at the men in the courtyard, but he missed.

As he distracted them, the Black Cobra jumped off the wall onto a veranda, then from there onto the ground. The men barked out orders for him to surrender, and even one man laughed as he twirled his blade from side to side.

They went in for the kill, but Debaku parried, slashed, dodged and slashed again, taking out two of the guards.

There were four more, two of them with pikes. After seeing their allies die, they fought feverishly to keep their attacker at bay.

Shiro took up his own scimitar and slid down the ladder to the courtyard. Coming up behind the two guards with pikes, he slashed one across the back. He screamed and as the other turned to face Shiro, he cut the man down with a slash across the face, his blood spraying onto the dry ground.

The last two men screamed and ran. Shiro and Debaku cornered them and they dropped their weapons.

“Wait!” one pleaded

Then the other put his hands together in supplication. “We surrender.”

“Do not kill us! We can assist you.”

“How?” Debaku asked.

“The keys,” Shiro added. “Can you give us the keys? We are looking for a prisoner.”

“We can do better,” the guard with the well-trimmed beard said. “There are only a few men left in the cell blocks. We can take you to whomever you want. Just tell us who he is!”

Shiro glanced toward Debaku who had who looked his way.

This was easier than I thought it would be.

“The man we want is a well-dressed goat lover with a hooked nose and a beard like yours,” Shiro began to explain.

“He would have been brought the prison last night, or just before that,” Debaku said.

“Mm,” Shiro noised with a nod. “Is he here?”