Juatwa

Prologue

It took Jabbar every fiber of his being not to roar. He wanted so desperately, innately, and instinctively to roar that it ate at his soul like a disease. Roaring was not just in his nature, it was the only outlet he’d ever had for his ocean of wrath. Now it was all pent up, shut out, and he would die in silence.

It would be total silence, too, because he couldn’t shout, growl, or so much as snarl. He could barely snort, despite all his rage and power. He was a rakshasa! One of the mighty rakshasa of Savara! A warrior race known for such legendary prowess that the mere sight of them—no, the mere mention of them—would make the strongest of men weaken with fear. Yet now, Jabbar could only breathe. There was nothing else he could do. The sand made sure of that.

All around him, filling every crevice but one, the sand pressed and clung to him like water. It ground into his clothes, filled his ears, and covered his eyes. It ground between his claws, filled the space between his toes, and flooded his hair. The sand was closer than any lover, and it waited patiently day and night for Jabbar to crack apart his lips so that it might fill his throat and suffocate him. The sand’s appetite was insatiable, Jabbar knew, but he would not let it consume him. He would remain calm like the hunter he was and cherish the fact that there was one, single, wretched place in this entire vast chamber where the sand could not reach: his nose.

When the chamber had first begun to fill, he’d tried to escape, and had it not been for the viking, he’d have made it out. The viking had had such strength for a human, though; Jabbar could scarcely believe it. Had that viking not held him back for a moment’s time, he’d be free now, rather than dying of thirst. Of course, the viking had had help from the other two humans. Those two, the amazon and the samurai, had kept Jabbar from escaping once he’d thrown the viking off.

Oh, how I loathe them.

Just thinking about the two sent a wave of pulsing anger coursing up his spine, and it took all his efforts to keep his lips sealed. If he made it out of here alive, he’d hunt them down and peel the flesh from their skin, piece by piece, and consume it in front of their dying eyes.

If, his mind taunted.

After the door had shut, sand had engulfed the chamber. Jabbar, in a fury, had wasted precious moments ripping out the viking’s throat rather than looking for another escape and then had wasted precious more by tearing the viking’s weapon from his hands in insult. Although it had been satisfying to watch Koll die gasping for breath without a weapon in hand, it had been a foolish error in judgment. The viking’s terror-filled face had been a delight to watch but proved of little use in stopping the falling sand.

With the chamber nearly full, Jabbar had had to climb the sand constantly to stay on top. He should have died—he had known he would, and he hadn’t completely understood why he was prolonging the inevitable—but still he had fought for life. His eyes had searched and his feet had kicked at the sand. He had swum through it, pulling his body with clawed paws, while the fear ran rampant in his heart.

But then, by some combination of miracle and flawed design, one of the holes where sand poured out had stopped before the others. For seemingly no reason at all, the hole had been left clear, and Jabbar saw it before sand filled the rest of the chamber and his eyes were forced shut. With all his fear, he had scrambled through the sand, pulling himself along by latching clawed fingers into the ceiling. He had nearly run out of air when his claws found the hole.

He had snorted out the last of his breath and shoved his nose up against the hole. One nostril had found it, the other pressed against the ceiling, and when he’d taken a deep breath, his burning chest had expanded with air, not sand, and the feeling had been so blessed that he’d nearly shed a tear in relief.

And then he had remembered where he was.

He’d left the hole only once in the past week. Dying of thirst and starvation, he had gone to fetch the viking’s body, and that trip had nearly cost him his life. He’d barely made it back, but he had—thanks to an appreciable memory, a legendary strength, and a lifetime of hunting in the dark. Piece by piece, Jabbar had used his claws to strip the meat from the viking’s bones, sliding the decaying stuff through the sand and into his mouth, swallowing a handful of sand along with his meal. It was a horrid experience, and were Jabbar anything but a rakshasa, he would have died from dehydration. But for him, meat was all he needed. So long as there was blood, he would survive.

And that was as much a curse as it was a blessing.

The ample time to think, constantly plagued by his attempts to control his anger, were slowly eroding his mind. He found himself constantly exhausted, and he slipped in and out of consciousness at random with no way for him to tell how long he’d been out. A part of him thought he’d been down here a week, another told him a month, but they were both nothing but maddening thoughts. The longer he spent alive, the less reliable his inner sanity became.

The area around him was a perfect example of that. It was a desecrated place, Jabbar knew, even if he couldn’t open his eyes to see it. The viking’s half-eaten corpse, clotted with sand, had turned the dried dirt into a rotten sludge. Jabbar’s own personal waste, disgusting in its own right, mixed with the sand and caked to his body. It added an atrocious stench and caused a perverse inch, and Jabbar hated the sand the most; although the stone ceiling took the brunt of his anger, and it bore deep claw marks in its ridged face.

It was his only form of release, the scratching. A normal human wouldn’t have been able to move with so much pressure from the sand, but Jabbar was a rakshasa. In frustration and anger, he clawed the stone and left raking gouges that he could trace with his paws. It would be a haunting sight if this chamber were ever cleared and his bones discovered.

No, he commanded himself. I will not allow myself those thoughts. Not until the last effort has failed.

He’d been thinking on it—his last attempt to escape—a day now, or what he assumed was a day. He’d already tried to pick the ceiling apart, running his claws over it, digging into the cracks, looking for some way to break through, but none of it had worked. He knew the walls were useless because he was in a basement, so that only left one logical option: the door.

The chamber had one doorway, which had been slammed shut by a slab of stone. It was solid in weight, Jabbar knew, for it had taken all he’d had to hold it before the samurai had stabbed him and caused him to drop it, locking him into this merciless tomb. Jabbar had frantically attempted to pry it up before the viking had come at him again, but he’d found nothing to hold. As the sand had filled the chamber, he’d abandoned the idea and climbed the mounting sand to stay alive. Escape seemed a useless concept after those attempts, and the ceiling had been so kind as to give him an air hole.

He did not think it kind anymore.

This chamber meant to kill him as slowly as it could. It was nearly as cruel as himself, and Jabbar loathed it for that. He hated to admit it, but he feared death. It was life he craved, though only for himself, and if he got out, he would inflict death upon as many as he could find, but on two in particular.

Yes, he told himself, I will live.

Courage filled him, courage and pride. It was a fleeting feeling, surely, for the sand did not care how he felt, but Jabbar would not waste a moment like this. He would go for the door, and if he died, then it would be by his will. Jabbar took one last gasp of fresh air through his single nostril.

He ground his jagged teeth together and pulled with stiff muscles through the sand. It both resisted and assisted, acting as an obstacle and also pressing his body against the ceiling so that he could grip the tiny crevices in the stone. The sand filled in behind his every movement like thickened water—always grinding, always rubbing, always against him. His ears filled with a constant tingle of falling sand that pushed inside his head, filling his ear canals and causing a subtle yet agonizing pain. He fought to keep his lips sealed, and onward he moved.

Every pull was relentless, and his heart raced against his will to slow it. He knew that every beat counted away the seconds before he died, and that made it both easier and harder to push on.

His claws touched a wall, and he grabbed it for all he was worth. This part was hard, though not the hardest, and he gave what strength he had, pushing with his feet until his body was forcibly shoved against the next wall. In this, the sand aided him. Perhaps it was eager to see him die. Perhaps it longed to see him struggle in his last attempts to escape. Perhaps it smiled with delight to see Jabbar clinging to hope with his last bits of strength.

Jabbar fought down another urge to roar.

Down the wall he went, clawed paw after clawed paw, searching for the door. He knew it was here. It had to be here! He remembered; he could not forget. The door, his escape, his last chance! It was here!

He found it. His heart raced to a new level when a single claw clamped upon a narrow gap that was too wide to be a wall. Frantically, he pulled himself to it and then down to the ground.

Yes! his mind screamed. Here! Now! Damn it, now!

Jabbar slipped his claws along the thin line where door met ground, searching for any slight gap he could grab. His lungs were on fire, his heart raced, and still his claws found nothing.

He wanted to open his eyes. He wanted to roar. He wanted to slam a paw against the door. He wanted to live.

And then his claws caught something.

As the air in his lungs continued to fade and his closed eyes began to flutter and explode in flashes of white, a single claw hooked on something lying on the ground. When he touched it, his mind told him it was metal, and a brief memory of the samurai stabbing him streamed into his fading consciousness.

Calmly, he ran his paw down the blade until it touched the door. His claws parted and slipped around the blade, and there Jabbar found the tiniest of notches. For as strong as the door was, it had not been able to crush the metal, thin though it might have been. Jabbar let out a purr and dug both claws into the tiny notches surrounding the blade. He spun his body to put his feet on the floor, shoving the sand out of the way, and prepared his body.

And he roared.

Sand flooded into his mouth and throat, choking down into his airways even as he put every ounce of strength he possessed into pulling. The gratification was nearly instant, and the door began to rise slowly, ever so slowly.

Racing against the sand, Jabbar roared and roared, filling his belly with dry dirt while his muscles burned and strained, lifting the door up and up, past his feet, then his ankles, then his knees. The sand flowed, eagerly looking for another area to consume, streaming past his legs, so many thousands of death-dealing particles. He could feel the sand shift all around his body, even as it filled him, and he continued to pull up and up and up, until the slab reached his waist, then his stomach, then his chest, and still the sand flowed.

Throat choking, lungs burning, muscles screaming, Jabbar flung himself with the flowing sand out of his tomb. The door instantly began to fall again, pushing through the shifting sands. If the sand dared stop, it might have held against the door’s weight, but the sand was too hungry, and so it moved while the door cut through it, slamming shut again.

Jabbar sprawled onto the sandy floor, already a hand’s width in height all around him, and began to heave. His stomach clenched and rocked, spewing out sand, blood, and bile in painful spurts. Through quick intakes between agonizing waves of vomit, Jabbar gasped tiny pockets of air into his sand-soaked lungs. His entire body shuddered, sending puffs of sand cascading down around him, as he retched over and over again on his hands and knees. Below him, the sand soaked up the contents of his stomach eagerly.

And then it stopped. His stomach had nothing left to give. He heaved a few more times, involuntarily, as his stomach tried to expel the pain along with the sand, but finally he regained control. Sand continued to pour from his hair, his clothes, and his ears, but at last he could breathe. He took in a huge gulp of air, coughed up a handful of sand, and then took in another huge gasp.

Then he laughed.

Then he roared.

Chapter 1

Emily felt the wood crack just before she heard it. A shudder of pain that was both numbing and excruciating at the same time ran through her hand and down her arm. She cried out and dropped the stick, which clattered into two pieces onto the ship’s deck. Emily stopped the pieces from rolling with her foot and began to shake her hand back and forth.

Rule number two, Takeo said. Never let go of your weapon.

Emily gritted her teeth and flexed her fingers. Both the numbing and the pain faded quickly, and she scolded herself for letting it affect her in the first place. The chill sea wind blew by her again, and she opened her palm to let the breeze soothe her aching, calloused hand. The weeks of swordplay were really beginning to take their toll. She had thought fighting with a sword would not be much different than with a knife; she had thought wrong.

I didn’t let go, she replied, sweeping the broken pieces aside and grabbing another sturdy stick. You broke it.

To a samurai, you let go.

Emily sighed but otherwise did not argue. She had asked for this, the training. She was skilled with a bow, decent with a knife, but she had never once touched a sword. Considering that Takeo and she were traveling toward a land full of sword-wielding warriors, she thought it prudent to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible. They had been at sea just shy of two months now and were within a day’s time of landing. The only thing this meant to Emily was that her training was coming to a close.

Remembering this, Emily lifted the stick for another duel. Her hand gave an aching stab of defiance, but she ignored it and focused on her goal. She pointed the stick toward Takeo, as he did his towards her, and she looked into his black eyes, which reflected whatever light touched them. Almost instantly, her muscles began to clench up with an anticipation that was as involuntary as it was unwelcome. After a few deep breaths, she was able to steady herself and release the tension from her body. It had to be done, or otherwise the clenching would stiffen her movements, preventing better reaction. She wished the nervousness was easier to suppress, but every time Takeo raised his weapon, even if it was just a stick, she felt her heart skip.

It wasn’t that she was afraid of him, and even if she was, that wouldn’t have caused her to go rigid. She’d faced terrifying opponents before and stayed calm then. The samurai had once been terrifying to her—what seemed like ages ago when they had been enemies—but that was no longer the case. A series of fortunate and unfortunate events had brought them together, and Emily found it odd how quickly she’d come to trust him. Fear was no longer a feeling she associated with Takeo, not even a little.

The reason she clenched was more readily explained as awe. Either that or it was the simple knowledge of what she faced. Takeo was not just better with the sword than her, he was better with the sword than any she’d ever met. He was calm and quick, agile and relentless. His age, no more than a year or two older than hers, should have been a sign of shallow experience, but that was not so. Despite being outweighed and far younger than any of the twenty vikings they traveled with, Takeo had yet to lose a bout with any of them. In fact, he’d even won a battle against two of them at the same time. To save their pride, the vikings agreed that Koll must have trained him in Savara and took to calling him ‘little dragon,’ saying that he appeared calm on the outside but had a fire that burned hot within him. Takeo had just smirked at that, but Emily had agreed.

Yes, Emily nodded to herself. It was definitely that which shook her normally solid core.

What was rule one again? Emily asked.

Be calm, Takeo said, his voice a prime example. It was the first lesson my brother ever taught me, and perhaps the hardest to learn. Once mastered, though, it is never forgotten.

Emily nodded, both in agreement and understanding. She rolled her wrist to loosen her joints, gave her knees a slight bend, and swung at Takeo. She held nothing back when she did this, and when he deflected it, she was already fast on the second swing, bringing the makeshift katana down again and again in a raining thunder of blows.

Takeo turned them all aside, and when she made a false step, he was on it in a heartbeat. In the time it took to blink, Emily’s stick flew into the air again, her hand stinging, while she tumbled sideways onto the ship’s deck. Her short hair scattered along her cheek, and she heard her stick strike the deck and begin to roll.

Aye! That’s it, lass! Matilda cried out from the helm.

The other vikings gave a brief cheer of encouragement, but Emily’s cheeks reddened. She’d been at this training for longer than a month now, and although she never expected to beat Takeo in her life, she had hoped to have more to show for it. She’d learned to shoot two arrows in a single week! Why couldn’t she master this swordplay, too? Despite holding nothing back, Takeo barely broke a sweat or moved at all to defeat her. In her mind, she’d done nothing worthy of cheering.

Is there another rule? Emily asked.

I’m afraid not. Takeo frowned. And, honestly speaking, I think those rules are two rules too many.

Emily pursed her lips and pushed to her feet. She looked around and saw one of the ten vikings circled around them had collected up her stick and was holding it out to her. There were heavy winds and, as such, heavy waves crashing against the ship’s starboard side that caused anything capable of rolling to do so. Emily took the stick and gave a half smile in thanks.

You’re doing great, lass, the viking said with a wink.

At any point in time, about half the crew took to watching Emily and Takeo spar. They weren’t bashful about their comments either, shouting praise, insults, and jokes aplenty. Emily didn’t find it distracting. She’d first learned to shoot a bow and fight with a knife among a similarly sized group, all eyes always watching her, and this proved to be no different.

Doesn’t feel that way, she muttered in reply.

Nonsense! the viking roared, and a heavy round of grunting agreement from the others followed. You don’t see it, do you, lass? When you first started these lessons, Little Dragon didn’t even have to parry, you were such a klutz. He just dodged like a goblin, leaning this way and that. You’ve gotten faster now, stronger. He has to turn your blows aside each time. You could do with a bit of yelling—that’d be the viking way—but you’re making progress, lass.

There was a concurring murmur from around the ship, and a slight blush touched her cheeks. She looked to Takeo, and he gave a nod.

It’s true, he said. I shouldn’t say it. I was taught that confidence is the first step toward arrogance, but it’s true. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.

Emily felt the left side of her mouth curve up and walked back to spar with Takeo again. He would beat her, that she knew, but it wasn’t about winning. It was about learning. Juatwa was a land full of samurai, so every bout against Takeo was a chance for her to understand her opponents and survive the war she planned to join.

Sword fighting wasn’t the only thing she’d been studying over her short voyage. She’d also been practicing with her newfound bow and pesh-kabz dagger. The bow was cheaply made, conjured by a jinni in Savara to entice Emily into a trap, but it worked well enough. It was nothing compared to her treantwood bow, but that family heirloom was lost to the sea somewhere off Savara’s west coast. The vikings had a few arrows stored away somewhere among the few bows they kept for hunting (such weapons were considered cowardly to use in battle), but nothing was any better than what she already carried. She practiced with the arrows, testing her new bow’s lackluster power and range, trying to engrain its limits into her mind, so she wouldn’t miss her targets when the time came to use it.

For the pesh-kabz, she found it a more than adequate replacement for her amazon knife. It was a dagger common to Savara, something she’d swiped off a dead slaver, and its use came readily to her mind. She practiced with the dagger, too, against Takeo, just so she would know how best to fight a samurai with only a knife in hand. It only took a single fight to realize that knives were woefully poor matches to katanas. However, if that situation came, she’d rather know something than nothing.

On top of this, Emily learned of her destination. This was perhaps more important than anything else. Knowledge was both power and a resource she coveted with an unquenchable thirst. Juatwa was a land she’d rarely heard of back home. Its distance from the Great Plains, where she’d been born, was so far that people referred to Juatwa as the East. Before she’d set sail from Lucifan, she’d known nothing of the land except that it had an ancient warrior class that named themselves samurai.

Now, though, thanks to Takeo, she knew just a little bit more.

Juatwa was a land steeped in war. Perpetual conflict was inevitable, and only those in total isolation could expect any more than a decade of peace. There were so many battles that villagers had a separate, and often used, guide to farming in land soaked with the blood of the dead. The people did not live in harmony with the creatures of the land, either, as they did in Lucifan and the Great Plains. Like in the Forest of Angor, Juatwa’s inhabitants fought not only amongst themselves for land and power, but also against the native creatures.

The source of all this war was the way power and land were divided up in Juatwa. Similar to Savara, Juatwa was a land divided amongst competing warlords who called themselves daimyo. There were, at any point in time, about one hundred daimyo in Juatwa who each controlled small to moderate forces of samurai that were sworn to him or her. With these warriors, the daimyo could extract wealth and power from the villagers on their lands, fight off other daimyo, and protect their property from the various creatures of Juatwa. The daimyo allied with each other often, adding their samurai forces together for mutual benefit, though always one led the others. In these alliances, the daimyo at the top of this chain was called the shogun.

There were only three shogun left in Juatwa, a rare event, and each sought to dominate the others and finally bring an end to Juatwa’s era of war. It was a hopeful time for the commoner, a chance to usher in a dynasty of peace, but also a dangerous time. No shogun would bow to the others, not with the chance of being lord over all Juatwa at their fingertips. That fate would be decided on the battlefield, earned by the sword, paid for in blood.

It was important for Emily to understand all of this because her entire reason for coming to Juatwa was a woman named Heliena, and she was married to a shogun.

Tell me again of the other two shogun, Emily asked Takeo as they went to spar again. I can only ever remember Katsu.

I’m surprised you remember there are only two others, Takeo replied with a smirk. I’ve barely had a moment to myself without you asking me another question.

Emily laughed and gave Takeo a testing jab with her stick. He parried it and gave her a return swing that she dodged.

I know. I’m a pain, aren’t I? Emily said with a smile and a teasing eye.

Not at all, actually. Takeo’s smirk broadened. I like that you’re so eager to learn.

His stick flashed toward her, and she barely had time to gasp and lean out of the way. The wood brushed her hair as it flew by her, and her heart raced.

That was close, Emily said, blinking.

Takeo shrugged. "I knew you could handle it. Now, the other two shogun. The first is Jiro Hanu. He’s the youngest of the shoguns, younger still than most daimyo. He’s only maybe half a decade older than me because he inherited the shogun title when his father was slain in combat. He lays claim to most of Juatwa’s southwest, which is a combination of marshes and forests. Last I heard, Jiro was going to be Katsu’s first target. Katsu will try to bleed him dry by using his komainu-mounted samurai to burn Jiro’s lands, slaughter his people, and spread out his forces. Despite having more samurai at his command, Katsu dislikes pitched fights where whole armies battle it out until one or the other is dead. He prefers to use his mobility and larger forces to fight a war of attrition because it is a game in which no one can match him. Katsu is the kind of man who will intentionally lose the battle if it means winning the war.

"I have strayed, though. My apologies. As for Jiro, I honestly don’t know much about him. I saw the man only once, with his father, when Katsu attempted to ally the Hanu family to him through marriage. I have no idea if Jiro has already knelt to Katsu or if he is made of sterner stuff.

The other, assuming she’s still alive, is Xuan Nguyen, or the ‘Old Woman of the Mountain.’ She’s both ancient and venerable, and she controls Juatwa’s foothills in the northwest, just below the Khaz Mal Mountains. Just as her nickname implies, she’s as stubborn as she is cautious. She has outlived two husbands, and though she has the smallest force of samurai between Katsu and Jiro, Katsu reckons Xuan would be the most difficult to assail. The foothills can be treacherous, and Jiro’s lands are easier to reach. Katsu’s lands, in Juatwa’s east, are mostly grassy, green plains. He’ll use his komainu-mounted warriors to strike all across Jiro’s lands. It’s a common assumption that the young are brash, and if Jiro is such a man, he’s probably already met Katsu in battle and lost.

Emily nodded as she absorbed all of this. She let her stick rest loosely in front of her, choosing not to spar while trying to listen. Such a distraction would be counterproductive, and her lack of activity had the added benefit of boring the vikings. The ten around them had dwindled to two now, and Emily gave them no more than a passing glance.

You’re quick to assume Jiro would lose to Katsu, Emily noted.

I know Katsu, Takeo said. He didn’t become the most dominant daimyo though inheritance, like Jiro did. He used wealth, influence, and ruthless combat to gain his power. He has many advisers and is wise enough to listen to all of them. He’s vindictive, too, and keeps the other daimyo close to retain their loyalty. Even if he makes a mistake, I can’t imagine a situation where he’d be unprepared to handle it. Trust me, Emily, I fought for him alongside my brother both in the front lines and then later on directly below a few of his commanders. This will be the toughest fight yet for both you and me.

You make it sound impossible.

It only sounds that way because it hasn’t been done. Don’t worry, Emily. We’ll get Heliena and stop Katsu.

Emily heard the confidence in Takeo’s voice and let it flow through her. She wanted to feel the way he made it sound, inevitable, like they were an unstoppable force of fate that could do no wrong. Perhaps he knew better and hid it for her, but she could not be sure. Failure was a drink she’d swallowed too often to forget, and knowing the odds against them did not help.

She decided she was tired of hearing about Juatwa. Her stick whistled as it swept through the air, and Takeo’s kimono fluttered as his wrist rotated to deflect her strike. Two more swings, a thrust, and Takeo’s stick finally retaliated. His first swing was wide, a distraction, and she dodged both that and the following swing, but his next thrust came too fast. Her leather vest took the brunt of it, but still the air was forced from her lungs, her teeth and hands clenched with pain, and her pride took another blow. She wondered again how this samurai had learned to be so deadly. The way he fought, with such conviction, was beyond enviable. She wanted to share that quality, and for that she would need to know his past.

He had not told her yet. She had asked once and was denied, but their situation had changed since then. Now they were only a day away from his homeland, and her thirst for knowledge had returned. She knew it would