After her talk with Jasper, Barbartu had a few things she needed to take care off. She headed down the stairs and paid the tavern owner for a month’s worth of rooms; even if she hadn’t owed Jasper, there was little point in saving her money. She had plenty of it back home, after all. From there, she headed to the market to gather the few supplies she needed.

Then she returned to the tavern. She stopped back at Jasper’s room to offer him a final chance to come with her, but found him asleep. Leaving him be, she returned to her room and, pausing outside the threshold, and left a few gold coins in the hall for the owner as what was coming next was going to do a number on the room.

Then, letting herself in, she got to work. Compared to the intricate and time-consuming runic magic of Corsythia, Barbartu’s rituals were quick and dirty. Intent and raw power mattered more than precision, and it only took her a few minutes to etch a circle into the wooden floor and fill it with salt and iron shavings. A few more lines were added here and there, completing a simple rune, and then she was finished.

Dusting off her hands, Barbartu gathered the rest of her possessions and then crouched at the edge of the circle. The mana flowed through her veins with new power, the power she’d stolen from Yas̆gah, and poured into the formation like a deluge. The circle glowed an eery red as the mana flooded it and then, with the sound of splintering wood, the formation broke free of the floor surrounding it. Barbartu ignored the startled cries of the rutting couple in the room below as the circular disc of wood slowly righted itself in the air.

The red haze around the wood intensified and then, in a single flash, consumed the substance. All that remained was a swirling ball of fire, and her limbs shook with excitement as she waited for the portal to finish stabilizing.

The angry red of the portal faded into a more muted pink, and she thrust a tentative arm into the portal. The swirling fire of the portal was hot against her skin, but beyond she felt the touch of fresh cool air.

A smile broke across her lips. She could barely believe it - after a hundred years, she was finally going home. As she stepped into the portal, her red skin melted away, replaced by the golden hue of her natural form. A vulpine grin crossed her lips as she stepped into Arallû and the power she’d been cut off from for so long flooded back into her. At last, Lamas̆tu, the daughter of Anu had returned home. And there would be hell to pay.

----------------------------------------

It was two weeks before they were able to leave Dūr-Yarha. Despite their victory, the mood was anything but celebratory. Tsia took Nēs̆u’s death harder than Jasper had expected; locking herself up in the tavern room, she ignored everyone who tried to talk to her and only made appearances for dinner.

Annatta, meanwhile, was recuperating slowly. The experiments the cultists had performed on her had, in some ways, imitated the sacrifice that Nēs̆u had offered to Vāya. Though she still had her class and skills, a significant portion of her strength and endurance were gone. The priests at Selene’s temple held out hope that she might eventually recover but, for the time at least, the Djinn was a shadow of her former self. And though Jasper was eager to leave the Moon-kissed city behind and return to the capital, the priests refused to let her leave until they felt certain she was stable.

That left Jasper, Ihra, and a still-recovering Rā’imu to their own devices. The first days, they stayed at the tavern. After weeks on the road and the horrors of Naḫas̆s̆innu, a cozy bed in a well-lit room felt like heaven. But in a world without TV, games, or even much to read in the way of books, it wasn’t long before cabin fever crept in.

Here, Rā’limu proved their savior. While the young Djinn might not have born much love for the city of Dūr-Yarha, he had lived just outside its wall for all his life and was a more than competent tour guide.

Dūr-Yarha was even more wondrous up close than it was from afar. Split into two great rings, the inner city, which supposedly traced its roots back to Damqa herself, and the outer city, whose sprawl had long since stretched along both sides of the banks of the rather small Biātu river, Dūr-Yarha was a booming metropolis. And, thanks to the constant, cutthroat competition between the great houses of Damqa’s successors, the city was filled with architectural marvels, each one constructed in the pale green rock that glowed beneath Selene’s light.

All in all, it was far from the worst way to spend his days but, still, Jasper was getting antsy. And then one morning he awoke to a visitor. Quite literally.

He awoke to the light filtering through the drawn curtains in a solid beam of light directly aimed at his eyes. With a muffled grunt, Jasper flipped over, his hands fumbling for a pillow to shroud him in darkness once again, but he paused as a dark blob on the couch caught his eye - a presence that most certainly had not been there the night before. The pillow plopped back on the bed as Jasper bolted upright. “Who the hell are you?”

As his eyes began to adjust to the light, Jasper was able to discern the stranger’s features. The tall Djinn was perched on the edge of the couch, his back ramrod straight. A naked blade sat across his lap, but despite that oddity, Jasper relaxed as he realized the man wore lamellar armor painted with the familiar colors of the royal house.

“I’m Captain Ḫuḫāru, my lord,” the man replied, bowing his head to the left respectfully. “I’ve come with a message from Lord S̆arrābī. I’m sorry for letting myself in but,” he glanced around the room, “when I could find no sign of your guard, I decided to watch over you myself.” There was clear disapproval in his tone as he continued. “I don’t know what your guard is doing, but have no fear, I shall report her derelict behavior upon my return.”

“There’s no need to do that,” Jasper hastened to assure him. “Unfortunately, she was injured rather badly and is currently being taken care of by healers at the temple.”

The man’s expression mellowed. “I must confess, I was surprised by Annette’s absence. I was one of her trainers when she first joined the guard and while she was not," he paused, "one of our most-talented recruits, she was never anything but reliable. Will she be okay?”

Jasper grimaced. “She’ll live, but it may be a long time before she recovers.”

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“That’s too bad.”

“It really is,” Jasper agreed. “But that’s not why you’re here, is it? What does my uncle want?”

The man reached into the bag hanging at his side and pulled out a letter. Accepting it from the man, Jasper flipped it over. It was sealed with a blob of thick red wax and as Jasper examined the symbol, his brow furrowed. “This doesn’t look like my uncle’s signet ring,” he questioned.

“Lord S̆arrābī sent this on behalf of his majesty,” the captain explained. “I wasn’t given permission to read it, but I believe it contains your orders.”

“My orders?” Breaking the seal, Jasper unfolded the parchment. A smaller piece of paper fell out of the middle and fluttered to the floor. Picking it up, Jasper recognized his uncle’s scrawl.

Dear Yas̆peh,

I hope that your mission for your goddess has gone well. I also hope that it has reached its end, for the King has finally managed to convince both the Northern and Southern tribes to consent to send aid to the Empire. Attached you’ll find a document granting you the rank of commander and placing a cohort of scouts and cavalry under your command. I also arranged for the S̆addu’â you rescued from Zel-Qabburi to be attached to your troops as auxiliaries though their pay, as we discussed, will remain your responsibility for the time being.

Unfortunately, now that the tribes have finally agreed to help, the King is moving with all haste. For many months he has been stockpiling supplies and gathering his own share of the troops, and I believe it is his intention to dispatch the southern troops within the month.

While I have hope Captain Ḫuḫāru will find you in time for you to reach the capital and join us there, I recognize that is unlikely. If it has been more than two weeks since he left the capital, do not try to join us there. Once it departs S̆addānu, the army will be marching north toward Dūr-S̆arru. It is scheduled to stop at Nūr-S̆ams̆a to rendezvous with the troops from the Northern tribes and will likely be delayed there for a few weeks. Head there instead, and hopefully, you will succeed in catching them before they leave.

I wish that I could go with you, Yas̆peh. You have adapted admirably to the challenges thrown your way and proven yourself a serviceable warrior, but war is a different beast altogether. But, with S̆anukkat’s child due any day, I cannot leave. While I have faith my daughter will be fine, Kaṣî has gotten into her head that S̆anu will die. If I left, I fear I would never be forgiven.

I hope that we shall see each other again, but if not, may Shamsha’s light ever guide your way and may his rays brighten every dark path.

S̆arrābī

Jasper folded the letter back up carefully and, securing it in his bag, turned to the larger parchment. It was as his uncle had said, a commission signed by the King himself giving him command of the 27th S̆addānite Cohort and commanding him to report for duty as soon as it was received. When he was satisfied he read through it all, Jasper turned back to the captain.

“How long has it been since you left the capital, captain?”

“A month and a half, my lord,” the man replied.

“Really? Why so long,” he asked in surprise. It had been a while since he had ridden from Dūr-Yarha to the capital, but Jasper remembered the trip being closer to 2 or 3 weeks than 6.

The man scratched his head. “Well, S̆arrābī told me you were marching west with a group of Seraphs. I followed the Seraphs to Katmû, where I learned that you had parted ways with them.”

Jasper leaned forward with interest. “You met with the Seraphs? Did you meet a man named Abnu?”

“Yes,” Ḫuḫāru affirmed. “A giant of a man with one arm?”

“He had two arms the last I saw him,” Jasper replied with a frown.

“It seemed a recent wound,” the captain added. “The Seraphs were…less than welcoming, but from what I gathered they had just engaged in a rather costly conflict with some mountain village.”

“Did they beat the cultists?” Jasper inquired.

“Cultists?” The Djinn’s face twisted with disgust. “Surely none of our kin have succumbed to such evils. We are not the Empire.”

“Unfortunately,” Jasper replied with a shake of his head, “that is exactly who they - and I - were fighting.”

“Then I do not know the outcome of the fight but, judging by the fact that they were alive, it seems likely that they won. If they truly fought cultists, it is unlikely that their lives would be spared.”

While Jasper hadn’t exactly split with the Seraphs on the greatest of terms, he couldn’t help but feel relieved. Abnu may have been a lousy guard, but he had seemed an honorable man. Sucks he lost his arm, though.

“So how did you find me,” he prodded the captain.

The Djinn shrugged. “Abnu told me you had split after a battle. He wasn’t quite sure where it had been but, in truth, it did not prove very difficult to track down the site of a giant wildfire that had been quenched by an unnatural storm. It was all the locals could talk about,” he said with a smile. “Once I found the battle site, I was able to follow your trail to Dūr-Yarha, and from there it was quite easy to track down the only member of the royal house known to be touring around the city.”

“You’re a scout, I take it?”

“Former,” the captain corrected. “I’ve been in the Royal Guard for three decades now, but I got my start with the scouts and that training is not something you easily forget. Speaking of forgetting,” the man paused and shuffled through his bag, “Lord S̆arrābī gave me one more thing for you. Ah, here it is.” The Djinn pulled a small package out of his bag and held it out to Jasper.

Curious, Jasper tore the package open and pulled out its contents. It was a dark leather pouch that looked fairly similar to the one he already owned, but when he opened it up and looked inside, he realized exactly what had been given. Row upon row of potions filled the bottom, sitting by side with an assortment of swords and spears, food and clothes, and even, he was pretty sure, a full-sized tent. He stared at the bag for a moment in disbelief, overcome by gratitude. “It’s a bag of holding.” Jasper knew all too well how expensive they were. After Ihra had scavenged hers from Lord Nabul, they’d looked into buying one, only to discover that it would have been cheaper to buy a manor.

“Lord S̆arrābī thought you might have need of it on the campaign.”

“Tell him thanks,” Jasper replied. “This is way more than I expected.”

The man grinned. “Don’t worry about it. You aren’t the only young noble being sent off on this expedition and, given the rivalry between the Southern and Northern tribes, I imagine a good many of them will be kitted out with every luxury imaginable. The Steward of Flames could hardly afford to have his nephew look poor.”

The man’s cold pragmatism wasn’t enough to douse Jasper’s gratitude. Whatever his uncle’s reasons, this was a princely gift. “Tell him thanks anyway.”

Ḫuḫāru rose to his feet and bowed. “I will relay all you have said to Lord S̆arrābī. Is there anything else you need before I go?”

“What about Annatta?” Jasper asked. “The priests have still not agreed to let her go, but the letter is commanding me to depart immediately.”

The captain hesitated only a moment. “I’m afraid you can’t delay any longer, my lord. If I had found you sooner, perhaps…but as it is, you will be hard-pressed to even reach Nūr-S̆ams̆a in time. The army will not wait for a single commander, but I fear the King would be most displeased if you failed to reach them.”

Jasper nodded. “I understand that, but I can’t just abandon her. Can you make sure she gets back to the capital safely?”

“Yes, my lord. I can my delay return for awhile.”