Bao watched the end of dusk from the top of the hill before Akako. Where the village itself was swallowed by darkness, its surrounding perimeter lighted like firebugs from the distance. It surrounded the left flank of the great village of Akako, looming like sentinels to guide the lost. It was a bitter sight.
The lights surrounding Akako were Shinsou’s towers, the warden of Hatsukochi. He claimed the great country on the fifth year of Zhaohu’s reign and ever since then, he had been expanding his manse and his towers. Every building surrounding Akako were properties of the legendary warden, housing his guards and his people, all beings sworn to him.
Some few chosen slaves get to live inside Shinsou’s manse but even with roofs and warm blankets, they would trade it all to be inside one of the tarp tents in the ruined village. There was nothing much crueler than being a slave to the Guren. Especially wolves. They had a volatile temperament to those not of their kin.
“We ought to be heading to Masu’s grove by now,” said Makaskas, the clouded leopard from B’koli. He pulled two horses on either side of him, one rein in each hand. He forwarded one gelding, white as snow with blotches of grey on its buttock.
“Not yet,” Bao replied. He kept his eyes on the view below, to the orange glows that surrounded the dim area of Akako. He longed for the day he gets to see those lights shine in Akako itself and not what surrounded it. He turned behind him and grabbed the reins Makaskas handed to him. “It must be fully dark when we leave.”
Together, they retreated back the forest path, pulling their horses gently by the reins. Makaskas with his chestnut mare and Bao with his white gelding. The moon was full tonight which meant that navigating to Masu’s grove would be easier but also more dangerous. Shadows weren’t as rampant as when Zhaohu first took sovereignty and their numbers already dwindled but there are still some that roamed the land and that was what they must look out for.
“How are the children?” Bao asked suddenly.
“They are doing well,” Makaskas replied.
“And what of the sick one?”
Makaskas sighed and turned his head to the snow leopard. “He did well.”
Bao nodded his head slowly, recalling that one sick child they saved in Kumokage. Avolar Nami already told Bao that the child would not make the journey but Bao insisted that they take him with them and now they lost him.
“He was better off this way than the other, we all know that,” Makaskas said. “You most of all know that.”
Bao said no more after that. The loss of one child he did not even know cannot bother him. There were worse things behind him and he best look ahead lest he stumble.
They reached the rest of the group by the splitting roads. Avolar Nami was dismounted on her stag, tending to two young girls. At the sight of the duo approaching her, she straightened her posture and lifted her chin.
“Shall we move now?” she asked, keeping her eyes on Makaskas and not to their leader.
Bao well knew what bothered the avolar—the one child they lost.
“The children are cold and hungry and I have to pray to Masu to give that boy rest.”
“That boy is already in peace,” Bao said monotonously yet somehow his words came out cold as ice and the avolar knew not to test the leopard’s patience.
Nami placed the children one by one on her horse before mounting up herself. She wrapped them on her cloak and snugged them against her body. “Let us move for the children that are still alive.” She did not wait for Bao’s instruction. She had her horse trotting already.
Makaskas looked at Bao nervously but Bao remained as stoic as ever, disregarding the avolar. She was young after all and she did not know the things Bao did—of the five tragedies, living through it all one by one.
Nami couldn’t have been more than twenty years old—she was younger than Zhaohu’s conquest and one of the chosen few to be trained under the healing arts of Avolar Linio in Tian Liang. Her entire world was inside the tiger’s palace and her teacher’s wisdom. When she experienced the outside world, she refused to return to her old life of illusions. She had been traveling the world when Bao saved her from a band of gold-mongering Oni in Kumokage.
“Will you be setting a different course from us again?” asked Makaskas, reining beside Bao. The clouded leopard sounded worried, as if he did not want Bao to leave them again.
“It is safest to travel alone,” Bao said.
“We are both not human,” Makaskas said quaintly. “I cannot see us drawing attention from the villages whose images are ours. What I fear for your sake are the ones that dwell in the forests and the temples…vile creatures.” Makaskas paused for a while before remarking, “What the world has become without the exorcists.”
“A hopeful one,” Bao answered. “The world was proud until Zhaohu came. Now we find ourselves out of our pedestals and in the mortal realm, immortal life forfeited for their cause.”
“Immortal life is not for me.” Makaskas sighed. “The deities of Ma’alon believed in the end. When Bakunawa arrives to devour the last moon, it is the end of all life, gods and humans alike.”
“Did the deities of Ma’alon hide in heaven as well?”
Makaskas pulled a sharp-fanged smile at Bao and began laughing. “They claimed that if they die in the mortal realm, nobody would face Bakunawa and that it would be the end of life for good.”
“Do you believe them?”
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“Bakunawa is primordial being. No god or human could stop him from devouring the last moon and this realm. I am a coward…because I’d rather face Zhaohu than Bakunawa. Meet oblivion than eons of life in darkness.”
Bao pulled his gelding to a halt and Makaskas outpaced him a few feet before stopping. The clouded leopard was looking over his shoulder, thinking if he said something that might have offended Bao but the snow leopard did not seem offended at all. He was quiet, eyes staring low. His ears moved up and down, trying to capture hints of noise—a snapping twig, a rustle whistling with the wind.
Makaskas grabbed the hilt of his dagger and pulled the blade slightly out of its sheath with a sharp clink. He focused, listened as much as Bao but it was quiet except for the natural cacophonies of the forest. In a heartbeat, Bao whipped the reins of his gelding and went speeding past Makaskas.
It was quiet—too quiet. Not even the march of Nami’s horse could be heard in front and that was proof enough that something may have happened. She couldn’t have been far and what fool thinks to ambush a rider with her pack closely behind?
Makaskas followed after Bao’s trail and together they hurried toward the pathless forest where the trees were huddled closer and their roots arched higher. Low branches scraped their tunics as they dived into the dark with nothing but their vision in the night to rely on. There was a smell, a trail of stink lingering in the icy air and along with it, the scents of Nami and the children.
Bao stopped at low ground where he was surrounded by walls of stone that seemed to form a small coliseum around him and he was at the bottom. Makaskas came trotting afterward behind him and Bao merely raised a hand to signal Makaskas to stop. The B’koli fully unsheathed his dagger and dismounted his horse. He made a muffled landing against the snow which buried him ankle-deep in powdered ice.
“I’ll scout the area,” Makaskas said but before he could move, Bao stopped him.
“We’re up against a band,” Bao said. “Don’t you smell them?”
The proud B’koli heeded his commander’s order but inside, he fostered his pride. The people of B’koli were fierce fighters. Number was never an issue in combat as long as they wielded their native blades which could cut through ordinary steel in three clashes, one depending on the strength of the wielder and Makaskas was one of the fighters that broke swords in one swing with his famed indestructible long dagger.
However, Makaskas trusted Bao more than his own skill. Bao was a survivor of Zhaohu’s war and he was yet to lose the battle. As long as he’s breathing, the fight was still not over. The world changed after Zhaohu’s reign. Not only humans dwelled in the world and something much more malignant than the Guren was birthed into existence and all of them were rampant without exorcists to keep them tamed.
“This scent…” Makaskas said, “I’ve smelled it before from the islands of Yofuchi.”
Bao knew well what the scent was. He could not mistake it for any other—the aroma of incense and candlewood intermixing with a hazing odor.
“Cover your nose,” Bao commanded when he noticed his senses get slightly dulled.
All around them, there suddenly formed a thin blanket of mist, hiding the trees and the rocks. It reeked stronger of that wretched aroma and in only a few seconds, they were already amid thick fog. There were wisps of blue light in front of them, floating elegantly and spiraling one another. It became brighter as it grew larger, approaching them in a bobbing motion.
Bao was covering his nose with the sleeve of his tunic as he alertly watched the orbs of blue flame dance around them.
“Fox-spirits.” Bao warned and after he let go of those words, the wisps surged forward, distorting their round shape like a comet with its fierce blue tail. Bao dodged the first orb with a tumble, plowing the shallow ice in his area. The orb hit the wall of stone behind him, dissipating into thin air and dimming everything around them.
The second orb was spiraling, seeming to home toward Makaskas and like the first one, it seized forward. Makaskas slashed his dagger in a swift, strong swing, meeting the ball of fire directly. It exploded into hundreds of blue cinders, wriggling in the air before disappearing. They were back in the dark once more.
“Bulan, light our way,” Makaskas prayed to the moon. “Foxfires and miasma,” he said. “How many tails?”
“Nine,” Bao answered and walked forward. “Miasma could only be created by a nine tailed fox and those foxfires didn’t seem to come from the same source. My best guess is that there’s three of them. Two younglings and a mother.”
“Two younglings…” Makaskas whispered to himself and all of the sudden it all came to him. “Two godkissed children…”
“We have to hurry,” Bao finished and marched forward, plowing through the snow. They left their horses since they couldn’t have them possibly climb a wall of stone and there was no more time to find an alternate way up.
When they reached the base of the wall, Bao crouched low and estimated the sequence of his climb. Wriggling his tail for timing, the snow leopard pushed with his strong legs and the leap sent him ten feet in the air, much lower than what he anticipated. He was standing on loose snow.
He grabbed whatever bulging stone he reached with his padded hands and stepped his feet to secure the position. Slowly and skilfully, he maneuvered himself up, jutting himself upward and using his claws to keep him from falling. In less than a minute, he was already on top of the wall.
Makaskas followed after Bao. He cleared the area of snow and mustered all the strength to jump. He leaped higher than Bao and high enough for the snow leopard to catch him with one hand and he was pulled effortlessly. Makaskas bowed his gratitude and they continued the search.
Their only lead to the missing avolar was the faint scent lingering in the forest. Bao suspected that they were still on horseback. How else could they outpace them in such a short amount of time? Fox-spirits had ways of getting their will into mortal beings especially the nine tailed ones. Bao’s only mistake was keeping his guard down.
“Something is not clear to me,” Makaskas said. “The fox-spirits are native to Yofuchi. How could some have been here?”
It was a bit odd, Bao agreed. It was no miracle that fox-spirits were in Fukamori but why that is was the real mystery. Something might have forced them this deep into eastern territory.
“If fox-spirits are here, expect anything else,” Bao said.
Makaskas nodded.
The path they followed was close to Masu’s grove but still diverted to avoid the place. They were going around the grove and to continue this route for three days without diversion would take them to the border of Haeguk and Ma’alon. However it was too early to be making conclusions. Bao couldn’t risk sending Makaskas to intercept the fox-spirits’ paths if they were going to the border. There were still a lot of alternate routes that could take them to tens of places.
“If we continue this path, they would soon reach clear terrain and if they truly ride Avolar Nami’s horse, we would lose them.”
“Go to Yachi and fetch ourselves horses. I’ll leave my scent on the trees for you to follow. Make haste.” Bao commanded.
Makaskas moved as fast as he could, disappearing into the distance where the fog was thickest. And as quickly as that, Bao was alone in the forest with only the moon as his companion. He left a trail of his scent on the trunks of trees for Makaskas to follow later and moved faster when Nami’s trail was beginning to get lost.
A strong gust of icy wind blew past Bao’s face and he caught a whiff of another scent with it: alcohol and burning oil. He suspected Shinsou’s soldiers to be marching but not long after catching the smell, he heard the muffled footsteps crunching on snow. It couldn’t have been more than one person. Bao bared his claws and prowled on the dot of orange light in the distance. From what looked of it, their paths were about to meet.
He waited.