Chapter Four—Caravan

They had lost the trial for a time.

“We should have brought that guard with us,” Shiro said. “There was another horse in the stable. We could have led him.”

“Perhaps,” Debaku added in agreement.

“Wait,” Shiro said, and pointed. “There it is!”

The trail was unmistakable. Once they had found it again, Shiro thought that losing it a second time would be all but impossible through the fields of green grass and the palm trees. They came to the top of a rise and found the road.

Looking down upon it, Shiro said. “We do not know if they passed by this way already. Do we wait?”

“I do not believe they have come this far, Shiro.” He nodded, glancing out at the dark horizon. It was the middle of the night. All was quiet except for the breeze and the crickets. “We will spot them easily with their torches.”

“Yes.”

“Let’s get lower.”

Shiro lead the way down a series of switchbacks onto a small ridge above the road. He dismounted his horse and tethered the animal to a rock so it wouldn’t walk away.

Then he sat in the grass, the road up ahead easily visible from where he sat. “How did you get so powerful?” Shiro asked.

Debaku looked at him. In this darkness, Shiro couldn’t make out his eerie snake eyes. That was a good thing.

“Many things,” Debaku said. “I was not very powerful before I found Archaemenes. Once I did, and I had learned to use his gifts, I was able to learn and train further than I ever could before.”

Shiro nodded.

“If Jessamine should find her way back,” he said, “then I have no doubt that you will find a similar path, Shiro.” Then he grinned. “You get in enough trouble to need it, I think.”

“I do not look for it,” Shiro said. “It finds me.”

“Do you know why?”

“I am not of these lands.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I am an isekai.”

“An… isekai?” he asked, not knowing the meaning of the word.

“I visitor from another world.”

Debaku looked up into the sky at the bright stars. “No,” he said. “This is not possible, is it?”

Shiro looked up. “Not from there, I think.”

“Then where?”

“I come from a place called Mikuma,” he said. “I believe it is on this world, because we have similar races that I have seen here.”

“Abassir?”

“No,” Shiro said. “Cat eye. Fushi, and others.”

“Ah,” Debaku said. “I see. Do you also—“

He sat up straighter, his eyes going from Shiro in the dark to the road behind him.

Shiro turned, saw the lights from the torchers. It was the prisoner caravan. It was here, coming this way. But it was still too far to hear the clopping of the horse’s hooves or the rattling of the wagon.

They waited.

“What is the plan?” Shiro asked.

Debaku turned his head slowly. “We attack the prison caravan when they least expect it.”

Nodding, he smiled to himself.

They had made an excellent team back at Ghogha Prison. And the way he had attacked the first caravan that Shiro had been a part of, they should have no trouble with his one.

Leaning low against the grass, the sounds of the wagon neared. It rattled and the horses moved slowly as the guards—kami-sama, there are a lot of them—patrolled ahead of the wagon and behind.

There were at least twenty men.

“They must have caught on to the fact that we killed everyone in the other caravan,” Debaku whispered.

Shiro glanced from Debaku back toward the approaching group of prison guards, soldiers and of course, the wagon. There were two of them.

“Good,” Shiro said. “I want to kill more.”

“Why?”

He growled quietly. “I want Darius to know I am coming.”

“I see,” Debaku said. “We have a saying in my lands.”

“Tell me later,” Shiro said. “We have a man to free.”

“Right.”

Debhaku got up, and keeping low, he scampered off higher up the road. To Shiro it was clear that the Black Cobra would attack the front of the group.

And if he attacked them there, then Shiro would attack from the flank.