On the Road (Exalted Fiction)

So here's a side-story I came up with that takes place alongside 'The Snare,' just something that picks up after the characters separate from the caravan. Mostly just some character moments, possibly setting up some future things. Maybe.

Y'know, if that sort of thing might interest you.

On the Road

The wagons rolled onward, the glassy stone of the Traveler's Road bearing their weight as it has borne the weight of countless others since its construction. Kasyan, perched on the roof of Oguri's wagon as lookout, found the smooth ride almost disconcerting. They were used to packed dirt, icy roads, and occasional sleds -- when they weren't just walking to where they needed to go. The white-furred foxfolk's ears swiveled, trying to pick up any sign of what trouble the caravan's protectors may have found in a town called Larkim, back the way they'd come. They presented quite the unusual silhouette in the last rays of sunlight peeking over the western mountains.

Kasyan certainly didn't mind sticking with the rest of the caravan. Back home, hundreds of miles to the north, they might have asked to come along, but the unfamiliar territory had already gotten them in trouble before. Also, on some level they worried that every local entanglement somehow slowed down their journey back to their people and their mother. Besides, they'd come to recognize the value in offering additional protection by staying with the group.

"We should camp soon," they said down to the woman driving the wagon, their voice thickly accented from a combination of regional dialect and speaking through a muzzle. "It's almost that time anyways, and there is little too be gained from getting too far ahead of the others."

"That's a good call," Oguri said without looking up, her weather-tanned features remaining focused ahead. She lowered her voice and continued, expecting the beastfolk's ears to pick it up. "We don't want to be moving when the attack comes."

"Glad I'm not the only one who spotted them," they said as they crept closer to the edge of the wagon roof.

"I may be the token mortal of this motley crew, but I've been around. That said, I don't have the best vantage point. How many?"

"Six. Lightly armed." Their ears flattened with unease. "Too interested for scouting party, too small for proper raiding party."

Oguri's wide-brimmed hat bobbed with her nod. "Okay. I thought there were some I just wasn't seeing." She bit her lip and continued. "If they're going to attack, I think it'll be when we've stopped moving."

"Best to get it over with, I think."

"There's a good spot a few more minutes up the road, next to a shrine to the road god."

If either had considered for a moment continuing on and seeing how far their mysterious shadows would follow them, they were certainly waiting for the other to suggest it first.

-----

The raiders waited until right when the campfire got started -- that much was obvious, as Oguri had spent her time intentionally getting it wrong to test their patience. But, as soon as the fire flared to life (and probably ruined any nightsight the people of the caravan had developed), the eager hoots and hollers from the forest startled everyone.

Well, almost everyone.

Oguri quickly unsnapped the leather strap holding the throwing chakra on her belt. She tossed one at the alarm bell on her wagon, hard enough that even the single loud ring was enough to center everyone's attention. Without even looking, she threw the other at the first of the attackers coming at the group -- a woman in leathers, with a spear. Oguri's first thought was 'icewalker,' but tattoos on her muscular arms suggested the Broken Antler -- an offshoot of rogues and outcasts, either deserters or driven out. 

The woman deflected the chakram with the spear, catching it on the haft like a festival game. She came at Oguri with a crazed look in her eye that, while the mortal didn't understand what it meant, sent a shiver up her spine. But that just sharpened Oguri's focus as she ducked under the spearhead and grabbed the rattling chakram. She used it for leverage to pull the spear down to throw the bandit off-balance enough to sweep the legs out from under her with a kick.

A sudden clattering behind her signified the arrival of her new bodyguard, who'd been napping in preparation for a night shift. The Southeastern woman with taupe skin and black hair in a bun emerged. A sash she normally wore with her clothing was wrapped around the lower half of her face like a scarf, as she hadn't adjusted well to the cold.

"Mahi, time to earn your keep!" Oguri yelled. The woman was already moving to chase bandits advancing on some of the other merchants. Out of the corner of her eye, Oguri caught the flare of Kasyan's anima banner before turing her attention back to wrestling with the raider's spear.

-----

Kasyan found themself dodging spear-blows and crossbow bolts -- somehow, one of these warriors had gotten hold of a Haslanti repeating crossbow, and that was an annoyance they certainly didn't need. A mortal guard would have been a pincushion by now, one way or another, but one of the Fire Dragon's gifts expressed in their blood was unnatural speed and agility. They danced like a flame in a storm-breeze between attacks, trying to line up a strike.

The kukri they bought in Fella was still an unfamiliar weight in their hand, but that couldn't be helped. They tried to avoid using their claws if they could help it -- blood could be a nightmare to get out of their fur, and 'civilians' never reacted well to seeing a beastfolk resorting to their natural gifts. The red flames of their anima flickered over their body like an extra layer of fur, guiding their movements, making their nerves feel alive as they sensed and reacted to the incoming attacks. Those same flames wreathed the thick tool-like blade of the kukri as they brought it down like an axe to turn the raider woman's spear into a stick, then quickly reversed it to half-burn, half-cut through her leather armor.

The crossbow bolts came quicker than they would have expected, some of them even impacting the raider as if the shooter didn't care what he hit. As the warrior woman staggered and fell Kasyan turned to the man, his eyes so wide with manic energy they seemed to reflect the flickering glow of the foxfolk's anima. He fired again, even though the Terrestrial casually sidestepped the first shot and plucked the second bolt out of the air with their fingers. The crossbow clicked, the framework holding the bolts empty, and without hesitation the man brandished the fine weapon -- which was probably worth more than any one of the caravan's wagons -- like it was a common club.

"Do not force me to kill you," Kasyan growled at the man, their ear swiveling to pick up the woman forcing herself to her feet behind them. He could hear her struggling to breathe, yet she picked up the tip of her spear to wield like an awkward dagger. Are you people not afraid for your lives? What drives you? they thought, unnerved.

But when it became clear the bandits would not be swayed, they fanned that spark of fear into the flash of strong booze flung into a campfire.

"Fine then. If you wish to die so readily, then come at me with everything you have!" they yelled, the translucent blaze of their anima banner flaring up for a moment.

The raiders obliged.

-----

Mahi seemed to drop out of the sky at the men attacking one of the merchant groups with the caravan. With an acrobatic flair she'd sprung off of the top of a wagon and spun with her sword out to deflect a blow from an axe. She sent its wielder crashing into the side of a wagon with a sharp kick. 

"Run!" she yelled, reacting so reflexively she wasn't sure what language she'd said it in. But whether the word she used was as foreign as her accent, the tone was universal, and the civilians scattered. With a flourish she turned to the second bandit and readied her curved blade, acquired from a retired Jiaran sword-dancer a lifetime ago. The sword flickered in the firelight as the man backed off, his hatchets at the ready.

She recognized, almost too late, that he stepped back not out of fear but to give himself room to move -- tactical considerations, not safety ones -- as he flung first one hatchet and then the other. Her wrist and fingers blurred at the speed of thought. With a motion as easy as the grin beneath her impromptu scarf, she spun the sword and deflected both thrown hatchets. The first thudded into the ground at her feet, and the other flipped awkwardly off to the side where she caught it with her free hand.

The man gasped with surprise, and she saw... something in that manic gaze, like he wanted to be afraid but couldn't be. Then his eyes flicked up ever so slightly, a reflex, and she realized what he was looking at.

She bit back a Southern curse and flung the caught hatchet back at him where it met his forehead with a wet thunk. The moment the handle left her hand she ducked down and brought her sword up to catch an overhead axe strike from behind. She stopped the weapon from hitting her, but it threw her off-balance, and she let herself hit the ground to block a second swing.

He came at her like he was chopping wood and she rolled out of the way, momentum carrying her back to her feet. She came up with a slash that he dodged, flipping the blade around in her hand with a strike at his throat. A thin red line appeared in the side of his neck, the man just quick enough to stay ahead of her movement. The man stared at her, amazed, with that same look as the first one.

Blood trickled onto her brow and she clenched her jaw. She took a step back as both she and the man with the axe readied their stances, and she took advantage of the opportunity to make sure nobody was watching too closely. The raider, some sort of local tribesman, grinned cruelly at her, like he expected to enjoy this. She almost rolled her eyes as she slid a foot forward.

As he rushed forward he wasn't ready for the hatchet that came up from the ground, launched by a short, sharp kick as Mahi blurred into motion. He awkwardly deflected it with his axe, but the weapon was slightly too large to bring back up quickly. Her sword cut into his arm at just the right spot to ruin his ability to lift and grip, and as the axe dipped further. She rushed forward, and while it wasn't the ideal strike with that sword, she plunged it into his chest and pinned him back against the side of the wagon.

She felt him gasp around her blade as she got in his face. "With your last breaths, thank the people nearby keeping me from taking my time with you," she cooed in Champoori Firetongue. She knew he certainly didn't understand her, but she didn't care. She hadn't said it for him.

She stepped back, sliding the sword free, and casually wiped the blade clean on his cloak before sheathing it. Careful footsteps approached, accompanied by awed whispers.

-----

It was only the spear's reach that kept Oguri ahead of the other raider's sword. The weapon was slightly too heavy for her, too far outside what training she'd had, and she was ready to get rid of the thing. Steel met the wooden haft as she resorted to using it more like a staff to deflect the other woman's blows. But soon enough she found herself bracing against the weight of the Broken Antler warrior-woman as she leaned in on her, caring little whether she ruined sword or spear in this. She pressed a hand against the blade, and Oguri could see it cutting into her hand, but she pressed on.

Oguri heard movement behind her -- the raider she'd taken the spear from was getting up. She had to make a decisive move, and soon. The spice-monger shifted her grip and pushed the spear down along the sword, making sure the edge cut into the wood. She then twisted her arms, taking the sword off-balance and plunging the tip of the spear into the earth. She used the stolen weapon for leverage to pull herself up into a kick to the larger woman's chest.

The blow pushed her back, and Oguri planted a foot and pivoted to deliver another spin kick to her attacker's jaw and followed up with a knife-hand strike to the throat. While the larger woman coughed and gagged, Oguri swept her legs out from under her to land with a crash. She reached for her chakram to realize it was still stuck on the spear's haft, and she didn't have time to quickly pull it off.

"Here!" came an unfamiliar voice.

She looked up and caught the chakram she'd used to ring the bell, carefully tossed back to her. She spun around without thinking, and with well-honed, adrenaline-sparked reflexes launched the sharp throwing-ring right into the first woman's throat. The bandit went down with a gurgle and stayed down.

Oguri looked around for any more attackers, and before the woman behind her could get up she rushed over to get her weapon back from the raider she'd just killed.

"That was Air Dragon Style, right?" someone -- the same someone who'd helped her -- asked.

"Good eye..." Oguri panted as she turned around. She saw a monk -- a man in this 30's, Northerner features, with a freshly-shaven head -- standing over the other woman she'd defeated, with his boot on the raider's neck. "...Brother monk. I hope I didn't offend by what was surely a poor demonstration of those skills." 

With a swift twist of his leg and a shift of his weight, the monk snapped the raider's neck and she went still. Oguri met his gaze, trying not to look disturbed at how casually he dealt that death, or the fact that she didn't know this man but felt like she should.

"I don't think we've met."

"We have, actually -- very briefly, back in Fella. I am Humble Blossom, temporarily apprenticed to Spring Lily. My master did most of the talking, so I certainly escaped notice."

Oguri retrieved the other chakram, sliding it off the spear-haft, not letting the unfamiliar monk out of sight. "I try to make a note to know everyone traveling with us," she said, bordering on accusation.

"Ah, yes, apologies. My master had other business so I was left to my own devices for a time, and while you were all packing up to leave Fella I got to talking with one of the other merchants and he invited me along to continue our conversation." The man gave her a slightly-too-sincere smile. "You tend to be pretty busy, I didn't have a good moment to make your acquaintance. If I'd known you had studied the Immaculate arts, I may have introduced myself sooner."

"I spent a few years in a monastery when I was younger. It didn't agree with me, but it's so rare for anyone to get to learn the Dragon Styles it felt like a shame to let the skills atrophy. So I've kept in practice."

"Rather well, for a mortal, if I may say."

"Who did you say you were traveling with?" she asked.

"Oh, in the excitement, you must have misheard me, that explains a lot. It's going to be okay, Oguri. I used to perform with Stray Dog Serenade's crew, he can vouch for me."

She furrowed her brow at that, then a flicker of light out of the corner of her eye got her attention.

Kasyan came up, wreathed in magical flame -- not enough to damage the world around them, but enough she could feel the heat. They looked around, ears flicking.

"Are you okay?" they asked.

"Yeah, yeah, it was just two random bandits, I handled it well enough."

"By yourself? Well done," they said, impressed. "Were you talking to someone just now?" They looked around again.

Oguri looked around as well. There was nobody there, who could she have been talking to? "Those ears of yours must be too sharp, you probably heard someone else."

They frowned at that but seemed to accept it. "It seems there were six in all -- I got two, you got two, and that means your bodyguard..."

As if summoned, Mahi returned, a scrap of cloth taken from one of the bandits' cloaks turned into a makeshift headband. The bloody headband combined with blood coming off her forehead made a macabre veil on her face.

"Mahi, are you alright?" Oguri rushed over to check on her, and the swordswoman waved her off.

"Head cut, bit of a... gush," she explained in her strangely-accented Skytongue.

"Head wound will bleed like a stuck pig," Oguri agreed, with a sigh. "Well, look, you get some rest and take care of that." She looked at Kasyan. "We should take those bodies away from the caravan and burn them. There was something wrong with them, and I don't feel comfortable leaving them intact or nearby."

"Agreed."

"Niilo!" Oguri yelled. A young man with blond hair came out of her wagon, adjusting his glasses. "Get some astringent for Mahi's cut -- blue jar, third shelf, you know the one. Kasyan and I are going to dispose of these bodies. You should be safe until we get back, but for good measure..."

Oguri looked around, narrowed her eyes, and turned back to her assistant.

"There's a shrine to Meyu the road god next to the last wagon down there." She pointed to the south. "Get a stick of incense out of the black box -- the black box, not the gold one -- and burn it in the shrine, say the usual prayer. Something tells me if we had more coming they'd be on us by now, so we're probably safe, but if we get the Journeyer's attention then so much the better. Hopefully the others will be back soon." Oguri sighed and shook off a sudden chill, and waved her hand around in a 'gather it all up' gesture, as she and Kasyan began to gather the bodies.

'Humble Blossom' sat atop one of the nearby wagons, hidden in shadows from the campfire, humming to himself and sketching faces into a notebook. If he minded that he'd already been forgotten, he certainly didn't show it.