Kaguta - Or, Ankūro - The Warrior, The Thief and The Killer

27

Saiban

The chill that you feel,
Is not from ice, or the wind,
But from your own soul.
- Rūka.

Saiban stared upward to the top of the wall and tried not to look down. He had performed more than his fair share of scaling walls, but nothing of this height and his muscular bulk did nothing for his agility here. High above, the storm continued to swirl while here they had taken the respite within the eye of the monster in a tight grip. The old woman had known.

She had known the storm would come. She had known that it would give them this small opportunity to clamber up the fortress walls and Saiban, his thoughts the only thing keeping him calm, could only wonder how she knew. He had lived his life all across Kaguta, believed he had seen almost everything, experienced every kind of weather the island could throw at its beleaguered inhabitants, but he had seen no sign of the storm coming.

Kūmaoi. The Sacred Spirit Storm. No-one alive had witnessed one but the stories remained. Of the Kūmaoi that had dashed invading forces from the mainland upon rocks. Of another that had torn down the Imperial castle, centuries ago, when the Emperor of that time believed himself a god, terrorising the people of Kaguta. And others, always coming in times of great need, or times of disaster. The old woman had known!

He began to wonder whether the tales of the woman were true. The tales that told of a Rokoi demon that walked Kaguta in search of mischief, her good deeds only a consequence of her trickster ways. Tales that told of the Divines become manifest, stretching out their collective hands in the form of the hated Ankūro, righting the wrongs made by people that had turned away from the ways of the Divines. Or a mere human. Old, overweight, blind in one eye, though of that he was not certain, and her scars proclaiming all the people that suffered before her eyes.

She did not act old. Did not talk old. When she fought, she did not fight as an old woman. Even now, she dangled from cracks and lines, that marred the surface of the wall, like a monkey clambering up a tree. Looking down, held on by one hand, as she waited for him to catch up. She looked up to the sky and then back to him, shaking her head. He had half-expected her to carry that ridiculous sack with her but that, and her chipped and weathered walking stick lay hidden down below.

"Faster." Her free hand urged him on and then swung upward, catching another hold without looking, bouncing up another few feet while Saiban searched for somewhere to catch with those wooden climbing claws. "Storm not finished. Faster."

They only had another fifteen feet, or so, to reach the top of the wall and safety, of a sort. Safety from the gusting winds that even now started to pick up their pace once again, but not from those that huddled within these walls. A force of hundreds, he had surmised, perhaps thousands. Hundreds of trained warriors awaiting the four of them. Saiban considered that he had lost his mind, but they had Nesukē within and the answers he sought.

Rain began to fall heavier once again, pattering and snapping against his back, even as the wind grew, tugging at his clothing, pushing him against the wall one moment, threatening to send him tumbling back to the ground far below, the next. His great sword swung and rattled against his back, distracting him as the wooden claws upon one hand scraped and slipped from the imperfection on the wall made more treacherous by the rainwater slicking the surface. He had to hold his concentration and prove that he was the master thief he proclaimed.

He looked up again, once he had secured himself, only to find the old woman gone and the end of the climb within reach. He had let his thoughts run and that had freed his hands and feet to move in practiced, experienced fashion and he now need only take one more step up and he could reach the parapet. With renewed vigour, defying the chaotic forces that threatened to fling him from the wall, he pushed on.