Sila had said that Guanyu's ironclad ship was far faster than pretty much any vessel on the Mesogeonian Sea. If they got out to sea and made it past the Koini Isles in the east, there'd be no way to catch up with them.
Since then, the two had rarely spoken aside from Taya giving commands or Sila relaying information she found about their prey's path, which was odd for her. Taya had never been in distress like this for such a long time since her years in her village. She didn't exactly have a way to assure herself, aside from simply powering through this trial.
Taya looked out over the ever-expanding grasslands before her from a perch atop the only tree for miles.
Taya had been estimating how much ground she'd been gaining each day and if she was lucky, she'd gained enough to catch them after they entered the town of Dimale, whose stone buildings, clay tiled roofs and winding streets sat along a somewhat secluded beach that had been transformed into a harbor.
The prince was just about to enter the town under the cover of highly valuable light Shedim to make them look like slave traders.
Taya leapt off her perch and indented the dirt with her impact. Sila was waiting at the bottom atop their only horse.
The Khongirat woman appeared to not be suffering the slightest bit from sleep deprivation. Perhaps she was used to hunting someone for days on end.
"Let's move." Taya said.
Sila kicked her horse into motion as Taya took off on foot, equalling the mare's gallop in her stride.
Taya's foot pressed into the earth with each step, spraying dirt up in her wake and sending wind whipping through her hair and cloak.
She could see Dimale's meager walls growing larger and larger as they approached.
"You take to the roofs!" Sila shouted, "I'll ride after them!"
Taya nodded. The sound of her breath contested with her thoughts over dominance in her mind. She waited until her entire field of vision was filled with the grey of the wall before slamming her foot into the ground.
She propelled halfway up and took herself the rest of the way with a single pull. She slipped over the wall between two very confused guards and landed in a mess of shattered clay tiles. Taya launched herself from the roof onto another building before sprinting across it and leaping to the next one.
Her thigh flared with brilliant violet light as she covered the relatively short distance between herself and the docks.
Then she saw it. The ironclad.
It was unlike any boat she'd ever seen before. A new generation of Nikan naval technology that was supposed to replace the ever-prevalent sailing junk, according to Sila. The boat was built very much like a junk, sails and all, but the entire ship was coated in iron armor and was built with vents for propulsion using steam.
And right on its dock was Prince Gongsun Guanyu.
Taya launched herself into the sky, drawing her claymore from her back scabbard. She crashed into the dock, demolishing the wooden path between the prince and his boat. She hopped back up onto the still intact part of the dock and stared down at the very startled prince.
She glanced around him as Sila pulled her horse to a stop behind him and his followers.
The local population scattered in fear in her wake.
The prince summoned his glaive from thin air in a flash of bright green flames, "I thought we had at least a day on you."
"You should've expected me to follow you without a wink of sleep. I thought you'd hunted me long enough for you to know at least that much." Taya said.
YOU ARE READING
The Call of Crows
FantasyBjorn Stormtamer's world has been turned upside down in more ways than one. His shipmates have left him for dead on an island for quarantining victims of a disease that he now has. His partner in battle despises him, his family thinks he's dead and...