Ronin Trip

Book two: Wild dogs and hunting wolves.

Chapter three; Enough rope to hang somebody with.

FN: Sorry for taking so long, was depressed about how few hits the fic was getting but decided might as well take the time to edit and post this chapter anyway (the entire story is already written, but I write so solopily that editting each chapter takes about half as long as writting it) and I’ve got a 9 to 5 jobs on weekdays now, so not as much free time as I’d like anymore...

Riou and Jowy decided almost as soon as they had managed to put a fair amount of distance between themselves and the fort that they should stop at the town of Ryube before trying to make it back home. Though they had just eaten before escaping neither one had any significant rations on them, and while they could scavenge some, not enough to get by on.

Ryube was also easily the largest village in the surrounding area. Riou had managed to sneak a couple of glances at a map of the area surrounding the fort during James’ tour of it and as long as they kept walking away from the fort sooner or later they were bound to find there way to the town.

----

It turned out to take a little longer than either had expected, but by around noon the next day the two had reached Ryube and managed to find everything they needed: a pair of backpacks, another couple of knives for general purposes, and a few days worth of whatever rations there were to buy.

However as they were walking past the village square a loud shout easily made itself heard above ordinary villiage chatter.

“YOU!” Both turned around and saw that a small crowd was looking half at him with anticipation and half at the figure pointing in his direction.

“Figure” was in deed the only way to describe “it” (though his voice had a masculine gruffness to it) however much time spent examining it. The figure wore a drab grey coat and pants, but what truly stood out about him was that his entire face was wrapped in white cloth. The figure took another step forward his finger never wavering.

“To preform a true test of my skill I need not just a willing subject but one who has the strength of character to match my skill. My inner eye sees that you posses such courage, would you not assist me in a quick performance? You will come to no harm or else I am not the Blind Knifeman!”

Riou gulped slightly, the last thing he wanted to do was draw attention to himself, but he couldn’t see any way not to, either becomming a part of this show that everyone was watching, or making everyone remeber tha the had left Ryube in a hurry.

“Fine.” He stepped forward and the Blind Knifeman easily motioned towards a tree that was part of the center of the village.

“Before you stand against it, please hand over your possession to my assistant Myst, and give me a moment, to discover your height, for while the inner eye can see someone’s character, paltry details like height must be left up to my hands.” Myst was a tall woman wearing an outfit of filmy white tinged with red.

Her hair was a reddish brown color that was tied in a pony tail in back and fell forward in bangs in front. She was just coming to an end of a dance for the amusement of the crowd, and breezed right by Riou snatching the backpack from his shoulders without significantly slowing down. True to his words the Blind Knifeman placed his hands against the tree as Riou stood with his back to them and slowly lowered them till they came into contact with something other than bark.

“Ahh, excellent, Myst, let us begin with something simple so that my assistant will not fear when I truly test my skill, I think the watermelon will do.” With surprising ease Myst hefted the large watermelon in her hands from a table full of various fruits nearby. She placed it on Riou’s head causing him to sage slightly at first but eventually he managed to accommodate himself to it’s presence.

“Watch closely for you do not know the true value of your eyes till you have lost them!” The Blind Knifeman threw his weapon and it landed smack dab in the middle of the watermelon causing bits of red fruit to fly off like blood from a wounded soldier. Myst removed the watermelon from Riou’s head and returned to the table.

“What next?”

“The pumpkin, that should do nicely.”

In a few moments Riou was now standing with a pumpkin on his head as the Blind Knifeman once again went through the flourishes of slowly drawing, pulling back, and then finally throwing his knife. Of course the fact that it once again went right into the fruit and no where near Riou’s head (at least as nowhere near as was possible in the situation) made him bregudge those flourishes a little less. As long as the knifes kept going into his targets and not his semiwillling assistant everything seemed relatively good.

“Still nothing but a warm up, the bananas!” These were nowhere near as heavy but took a bit of adjusting to get them to balance correctly on Riou’s head. The knife went through not one, but two bananas before it finally stopped. The Blind Knifeman was quite pleased with his work, evidently able to tell the difference between a knife striking flesh and striking fruit by the sound alone.

“Excellent. Now then, a true test of my skill and my assistants courage, the apple.”

Riou made sure not to shake as Myst placed the oh so small target on his head. Riou doubted he was the only person who closed their eyes as the knife left its master’s hand headed in his general direction. Thankfully he was able to open them and slowly turn around seeing that the knife had gone right through the apple, and pinned it to the tree he had been standing against. The Blind Knifeman was meanwhile basking in his audience’s applause and amazement at his skill.

“Thank you, thank you, but please at least half of your praise is due to my assistant who tested something that you must be born with rather than acquire practice.” Riou stood up and bowed having no real other choice in the matter.

--

Unfortunately Myst neglected to return his backpack to him as soon as he had finished using his head as a resting place for object her partner was going to use for target pratice. In fact, she incorporated it into her next dance, spinning it around her wildly as she moved.

Not wanting to disrupt the show Riou and Jowy just waited around till the two finished, and finally once the crowd had left the two a reasonable amount of money for their performance did Riou finally confront them.

“I’d like my backpack back.” The Blind Knifeman extended his hand and Myst passed the item in question to him.

“Of course, it is only polite to give someone what is their’s. However, my inner eye tells me that there is a much greater service that I can do for you two. Do you have intentions of crossing the boarder between Jowston and Highland?” Riou wasn’t sure what to say, but Jowy blustered out exactly what he was thinking.

“How can you know that?” The Blind Knifeman made a few random motions with his hands, and of course his face displayed no emotion.

“When I was but a young boy, barely weened form my mothers teat, there was a horrible disaster. It left me as you see me today, unable to see or even so much as feel the touch of another being’s hand upon my own. But it also imparted onto me the power of the inner eye which shows me not what someone looks like, but who someone is.

You two are both seeking to return to home, across the boarder. It is something you will not achieve on your own, The last thing the guards at the mountain pass would do is simply let two boys through without good reason. After all they might be Highland spies, however we are well known travellers who have been pedaling our trade long enough in these parts, and the guards would less us pass along with our two ’apprentices’ if you care to travel with us. It is an arrangement which would benefit us both.”

“Sure.” Jowy scowled at him, but he ignored it, it only made sense that there was strength in numbers.

“Excellent, in that case you may think of me simply as Blind and as you already know this is my companion Myst.” Myst laughed gayly for a moment at her introduction. “I was going to call myself ‘The Mystic Maiden’ but travelling in Blind’s company, one mouthful per introduction is more than enough.”

Myst gave a quick flip of her mane of hair with a small twist of her neck between her first and second sentence. “I must admit Blind your premonitions do seem to be getting more accurate all the time. I was quite put out when you said that we’d need to purchase two extra horses when we arrived here. I’ll just think of this the next time I wonder about one of your crazy vision of the future I’ll remember this and shut my mouth!”

True enough there were four tied up horses near the town’s inn that the two untied the knots on. Granted it might just be a little bit of horse thievery that was going on with a very serene air about it, but after a moments considered Riou realized as a member of Highland’s army who had been taken prison and escaped, he was already on the wrong side of the law.

---

The State guards took one look at the odd group and then crossed their arms. “Who exactly do you think you are? We have orders not to let anyone cross into Highland.” The group temporarily dismounted and Blind stepped forward very slowly a noticeable air of menace about him.

“I do not think the issues lies in I knowing who I am, but in you knowing who I am. Myst hide the younglings eyes, I do not wish the sight of my deformity to fall on those who have not earned such a punishment.” Riou turned around and with a little prompting later from Myst Jowy did as well. Both of them heard the sound of several rolls of cloth striking the ground and then the stammering voice of the guards.

“Ohh my...”

“Of course we’ll let you through....”

By the time Myst took her hands off their shoulders and allowed them to turn around Blind was giving the last tug on wrappings of cloth around his right hand. The guards parted and the procession of four horses went on their way.

----

They remained unmolested for the rest of their journey. Several times Riou thought he saw odd shapes moving in the mists surrounding the mountains, but all of them apparently took one look at the four of them and backed off. If they were human bandits they obviously felt that the four wouldn’t be worth the trouble when they clearly had little more than enough food to get by on them.

If they were monsters... Riou would just as soon not consider what that meant about the powers of Blind’s “inner eye”. But still they managed to make it to the gates of Kyaro city much sooner than they thought they would, so they bid Blind and Myst goodbye and took off on foot. Riou to see his sister and Jowy to see his entire family.

----

Riou found his sister in the backyard of what was had become more or less his house after their adopted father Geneku had died, she was kneeling before his grave. Not wanting to break her concentration he approached as slowly as he possible. Only once she started to rise from her crouch he dare to speak a couple of works.

“Hey, I’m back.” Nanami turned around, and leapt at Riou driving him to the ground.

“Riou I’m so glad to see that your safe because I heard a horrible rumor that the Unicorn Brigade was all killed, but I knew you’d make it out somehow!” Her voice was more high pitched and frantic than normal, her brown hair whipping about her face as she continuned to all but mindlessly babble her words.

“They said that there was this horrible State spy that betrayed everyone to Jowston and might as well have slit all their throats himself! Of course I remember hearing somewhere that spies always work as a pair something like that old expression thick as thieves you know? Is Jowy all right, he must be all right, I can see it in your face, if he wasn’t okay you’d be a lot sadder since you two have been friends practically since you both could walk....”

Riou discovered that he much preferred his sister’s quick ramblings and rapid shaking of his shoulders to this sudden and extremely ackward silence that now filled the air between them. But before Riou could get a word in edgewise she was back to the races.

“That couldn’t be! You and Jowy, spies? Never! Right? I mean you’ve spent your entire life in Highland why would you suddenly betray me, Kyaro town, and everyone you ever knew? You couldn’t! Could you?” Riou began to gesture at his throat since the hands formerly on the fringes of his jacket had moved slightly and in turn he was now finally finding it slightly harder to breath. The hands finally withdrew and Riou was glad to see that Nanami was finally waiting for him to respond.

“Well it is a bit hard to explain exactly what happenned. You’re right there was a surprise attack, and I’m pretty sure me and Jowy were the only ones who got out alive.... But State wasn’t the ones behind it, Highland was.” There was another long pause in the conversation during which Riou expected to once again find himself being shaken about far worse than had been during the horse ride home. Nanami refrained however, just sitting on her knees looking at him with her large open brown eyes.

“Why would Highland attack the Unicorn Brigade?” Riou took another deep breath before launching into a reasonable rendition of events. His plans for going home, the surprise attack, the climb, the jump, his capture, Jowy rescuing him (he left out their first failed attempt at escape) and their trek back. Nanami listened patiently through all of it before finally responding.

“Well then what are you doing here?” Riou coughed in surprise not actually ready to voice displeasure with this particular view of the journey he had taken to get home and see her. Nanami laughed at her own expence as well and then corrected herself.

“Sorry Riou, it’s just that Captain Rowd has been hanging around town asking if anyone has seen you. I’m glad to know that you made it back in one piece, but now that I know why, it seems like you put yourself in some unnecessary danger.” Riou spluttered a bit more before he managed to respond.

“I kind of did that already when I agreed to join the Unicorn Brigade. I’m a soldier now, for better or for worse.” Nanami looked over at the tombstone of their adopted father for a moment.

“Sorry, it’s just it’s hard for me to forget the scared look on your face the time that you fell out of the tall tree not far from here.” Riou had to been too young when he was adopted to remember his real parents so he had not wished to know anything about them very often. He had however wished he had been adopted into a family without any female siblings who were older than he was several times, and now proved to be another.

“Listen, if you’re that worried about me then I’ll get out of town right now and march back across the boarder and give myself up to State soldiers guarding the border. It’s just that I couldn’t let you think I was dead, or a traitor, or whatever Rowd said about me.” The idea of going back into captivity didn’t seem that pleasant to him, but it was better than death.

“Thanks, you always had a good head on your shoulders. I’ll get my stuff and at the very least I can walk with you to our side of the boarder. Maybe when the war is truly over I’ll be able to join you.”

“Yeah.” Riou had neglected to mention anything to do with how someone could use the Unicorn Brigade incident to make sure the war didn’t get to be well and truly over for a very long time. All of a sudden Nanami got off her knees and stood up.

“We need to warn Jowy that Rowd is in town! Let’s go find him!” Riou got up as well heading for the backdoor into the house, but before he so much as touched the knob he found himself being dragged in the opposite direction.

“I nearly forgot, you haven’t prayed at Genku’s grave yet!” Riou doubted that he had time for such rituals, but he also knew better than to argue with his older sister. So he uttered a quick prayer for protection, and the safety of all those he cared about to the protective spirit of his, well ancestor in law or whatever. Then he stood back up, and by the time he did Nanami already had her staff in hand. Unlike Jowy’s it was not one single piece of wood, but two joined together by wire within that allowed her to attack in a great many ways.

“Okay then, now we can go.” Unfortunately they didn’t manage to go very far, it seemed like the very moment they had walked out of the house they found Rowd waiting for them with a dozen other soldiers.

“Heh, the bird that flies the coop always returns to the nest sooner or later.” Riou staired at Rowd glad that he was wearing his weapons.

“Captain...” Rowd showed absolutely no emotion on his face however, and Riou suddenly remembered the image of the Unicorn Brigade’s commander with a bloodied sword. If there hadn’t been anyone from State anywhere near the campsite then whose blood it was suddenly become a very pertinent question.

“Arrest both of them, the traitor and the girl.” The soldiers advanced and Nanami got a good grip on her staff, however before she could do anything Riou glared at her and then lowered his hands. Against that many trained soldiers they had no chance anyway, and if she fought back Nanami would get dragged into Riou’s problems as well.

“Fine, since you clearly feel like you needed to bring so many guys just to arrest two kids, we’ll go with you.”

---

Rowd and the soldiers lead both Riou and Nanami to a cell deep within the Highland base’s barracks in Kyaro. This was a true cell unlike what James had put him in, metal bars ran horizontally all along it, and the door had several stout iron locks attached to the opposite side of the door so that even they had lockpicks they couldn’t actually put them to use. There was no bed, only hard rock walls to lean against. Jowy was waiting for them as Rowd pushed them in and slammed the door shut behind them.

“Don’t worry you won’t have to wait long. I’ll see that your executed before nightfall.” If looks could kill Jowy’s glower would have smote Rowd twice over.

“I suppose you expect us to be thankful for that?” Rowd smiled at them, Riou had no doubts that it was always easy to smile from that side of a cell.

“It’s nothing personal, I even thought you two had the makings of fine soldiers. It’s just that as long as your alive and insist on telling people the ‘truth’ about what happened to the Unicorn Brigade, you are a thorn in Prince Luca Blight’s side, and if we are not loyal to our rulers what are we but savages?”

Riou was certainty starting to feel quite a bit savage himself, and Nanami more than a bit.

“So your going to kill us just because some well bred mucky muck told you to?” As she spoke she grabbed hold of two of the cells bars as if trying to shake them lose.

“Of course not. Like I said the ‘truth’ of the Highland Unicorn Brigade will die with you quite soon. When it does the reality of the events will be that the United City State of Jowston was behind the vicious and deplorable actions.

Prince Luca Blight will charismaticaly step forward to avenge this nation’s fallen children and put Jowston to sword and torch. All of Highland will rally behind him revitalized by finally having not only victory but a cause to seek further victories. Best of all, even though they ‘struck first’ Jowston will have no warning when Prince Blight falls on them like the wrath of the gods.

Of course in volunteering my brigade for his purposes the Price will appoint me to a position worthy of my skills rather than looking after children. In return for your arrogance in refusing to die that night you will not be remembered as heroes but as traitors, and you will still not change things in the slightest.” Riou wanted so much to wack that smile off of Rowd’s face but since he couldn’t do it with his tonfas he would have to find another way.

“General Alexander Diamondclaw knows everything. I told him the day after I escaped you. You can kill us but he already knows what Luca is up to.” Rowd looked both ways but no one else was anywhere nearby. He reached through the cell bars trying to grab hold of Riou who wisely took a couple steps back further into the cell.

“You pathetic piece of scum! See, I was right you are a traitor to the Highland cause! I’ll enjoy seeing you hang!” Then Rowd regained his composure and pulled back.

“It still maters not, besides Jowston’s generals are but children compared to Highland’s, even forewarned, they won’t be able to stand against us!” Nanami suddenly had a sparkle in her eyes.

“Alexander Diamondclaw!” She practically shouted the name though to her it might as well been a chant from some kind of primitive language. But the way it made Rowd quiver and twitch made it clear that the chant had some power behind it. Jowy from the very back of the cell eagerly joined in.

“Alexander Diamondclaw!”

“Alexander Diamondclaw!”

“ALEXANDER DIAMONDCLAW!” The last was a shout of all three together and finally Rowd could take it no more.

“SHUT UP!” His entire face was a study of a man who was near the end of his extremely frayed rope.

“We’ll see how smart your mouths are when we have a noose around each of your necks.” Then he stalked out of the dungeon doing his best not to look over his shoulder. Nanami let out a shallow laugh.

“Well at least that gave him some, if not hardly even half of what he disserved...” Jowy meanwhile was still sitting against the back of the cell looked away from the bar that kept the three in..

“It must be nice to do things as a family.” All of a sudden Riou saw the sullen resentment of a prisoner melt off Jowy’s face to be replaced with true sadness.

“My father. My own father wouldn’t hear me out, he said after what I did I wasn’t part of the family any more, and my younger brother agreed with him. They wouldn’t even let my mother see my face. You don’t know how well you have it Riou, Nanami may not be related to you but evidently she decided not to give up on you.

My own flesh and blood would had preferred I’d let my flesh and blood got smeared all over the side of a burning tent so that they could hold the could tell everyone they knew how their son died a noble hero. I’m nothing to them but a fucking shogi piece to be moved about and sacrificed for their own gain!” Riou and Nanami both joined Jowy at the far end of the cell. In comforting their friend through his loss they could momentarily forget about their own shared fate.

---

About an hour after Riou and Jowy had entered into Kyaro city Blind and Myst were letting their horses drink from a nearby stream. Both of them were looking towards the water and seeing very different things in it.

“You were right, that went off much smoother than I expected it to. If they had been any judge of horseflesh they should have been able to tell the difference between the nags poor travellers could afford and our military steeds.” Blind very slowly reached for the end of the cloth strung around his right hand and began to undue it.

“You shouldn’t have been worried, I can still remember when I was as young and nieve as those boys were.” Myst scooped both of her hands through the water and splashed her face with it.

“You still are, in one way at least, trust me on this one. So when do you think we should head back there if we want to get what is coming to us?” As the folds of cloth came away, an inhuman appendage was revealed.

“Let’s let the horses finish recovering and then we’ll head out.” Meanwhile as dropplets water made its way down Myst’s face, her hair color went with them in a coppery cascade.

----

True enough to his words not so very much longer (three hours at most) later Rowd and a great many soldiers came for them. Rowd slowly opened the door before thrusting accusing fingers at Riou and Jowy.

“You two are coming with us. We have to make a prime example out of those who would dare to betray the Highland cause, as for your shared friend, we’ll eventually get around to giving her a much less public death, as befits a lady.”

Nanami tried to force her way out of the cell as the soldiers dragged the two young men but had a couple of them easily held her back. Rowd closed the door and locked it again before he began to head out of the dungeon the soldiers making sure that their captives kept up with whatever pace he chose.

----

Riou wondered how exactly actually hanging could be worse than the process that was leading him towards being hung. Being forced to walk down the main street of his home down watching countless people screaming, cursing, spitting and hurling rotten fruits at him and Jowy. People who he had grown up with and at any other time would have considered friends.

Then they were lead to the scaffold that had apparently been constructed just in those two’s honor. It was a monstrous, thing, apparently they wanted anyone from anywhere in the town to be able to see the executions which were about to occur. It had to be at least seven feet off the ground, and as they were lead up they were greeted with the sight of an actual executioner.

He was a tallish man with extremely well muscled arms who looked like could have just simply throttled Riou and Jowy with his bare hands. He wore a black hood which made it hard to even tell the exact color of his eyes. The soldiers made sure that they stood in the right places on top of the trapdoors that would swing away when the two quite evident levers were pulled.

Riou had never seen someone hanged before but the process was quite self evident, especially when you were the hangee. There was a great deal of slack in the rope put around his neck, but he doubted there would be enough to let his feet touch the ground below. and the knot put around his throat was already making it hard to breath.

But before theevent itself could take place the crowd parted to let a woman through. Before Riou could even formulate the obvious question it was answered by a one of the soldiers.

“Make way for her royal highness, Princess Julia Blight!” The woman slowly walked to Rowd’s side and then looked up at Riou and Jowy.

“These are the two spies? But they’re so young...” On closer inspection Riou noticed that the princess didn’t look to be much older than he was, but now was obviously not the time to comment on such. Rowd nodded of course proudly tapping one of the wooden supports of the scaffold.

“Yes these are they. Do not let your heart soften at the sight of them, traitors to our nation can come in all shapes and sizes.” Jowy apparently had a little looser noose than Riou did, or he wasn’t worried about trying to stay conscious.

“You jackass Rowd! We didn’t betray the nation of Highland, Highland betrayed us!” The executioner whacked Jowy upside the head with one of his hands and it apparently knocked him silly if not quite senseless. Julia slowly nodded and then walked away, the soldiers parting at once, and as she got back into an impressive looking carriage and took off some of the soldiers began to start up a drum beat.

“Do you have any last words?” Nothing appropriately mature came to Riou’s mind.

-----

Rowd up looked up at the sky, and smiled.

“Enjoy the sunset, it will be your last.” His smiled widened as he examined the orange ball that was slowly sinking downwards.

“For too long my triumphant rise to greatness has been halted by this assignment so far beneath one of my stature. Now with you traitors out of the way I will become Prince Luca Blight’s right hand man. He and I are alike, for we are both men destined for greatness...”

All of a sudden Rowd’s world spun and he found himself face down in the dirt. An annoyingly chipper voice assaulted his ears finally breaking him out of his revelry.

“WHOOO WEEEE I hooked a big one this time Mirri!”

----

Riou looked over at Jowy and then over at the man wearing a black hood with his hand on the two levers.

“Friends to the end?” Jowy managed to pull his eyes away form those levers to look Riou in the eyes.

“Yeah.” Unfortunately Riou couldn’t help but letting his eyes wander back to those levers even as he was trying to look at his friend, those lever which would be bringing a perminant end to their friendship.

The man pulled both the levers at the exact same moment. Riou closed his eyes, felt the platform drop out beneath him, and felt the sudden shock of pain that he had expected. But for some reason it had occurred in the wrong part of his body. He opened his eyes and discovered why... Both he and Jowy were now sitting down on the dirt below the scaffold.

Jowy was no longer wearing a noose around his neck and when he checked his own throat it was now equally unadorned. Without thinking he rolled himself to the side out from under the scaffold so that he could see what was going on. Once he had done so he was presented with an interesting tableau. James and Mirri were standing on the scaffold, and Mirri currently had the executioner in a choke hold. Despite the disparity in size Mirri apparently had no trouble at all restraining her captive.

“You people came to see an execution, and believe me you will. You have been judged by not by a mortal king, but by the divine eyes of the twenty seven True Runes, and found wanting. This heartless monster who would execute children will be the first!” Then Mirri bit into the man’s neck, and he instantly went limp, followed by her tossing him into the crowd of soldiers.

There was a bright flash of light and when it finally died away all that was left of several of “Highland’s finest” was a smoking hole in the ground. Those who were still in the condition to fight, turned and ran at once with the exception of Rowd who seemed too frightened to even do that. James meanwhile was working like mad, he sliced both Riou and Jowy’s nooses which were still hanging form the gallows.

Looking closely Riou could see that the nooses themselves already had another slash in them. He could guess how they had gotten there, James must have thrown a pair of knives cutting them as the lever was pulled. The nekokobold sheathed that pair of knives, grabbed the two nooses he tied them together throwing in a few more quick knots that made it come to an end with a much larger loop. James tossed the two nooses and they went over Rowd’s head and then he around his chest. A quick tug later and Rowd was yanked off his feet.

“WHOOO WEEEE I hooked a big one this time Mirri!” Rowd attempted to crawl away but he was wasting his time, his captor casually kept pulling at the rope like he was doing nothing more difficult then making sure a fish didn’t get back into the water with its last desperate thrashes.

“So James do you think that was too melodramatic? After all they weren’t so much found guilty of being bad people as found guilty of being in an army fighting against ours.”

James put a little bit more effort into pulling the rope nodded along with his partners words.

“Yeah, but it isn’t the first time we’ve had to kill people for that reason. Besides, anyone who would help hang totally innocent kids, yecch, I’m not terribly saddened to see em go. So what do you say we do with this one?” Mirri grabbed hold of the rope and began to shorten Rowd’s ‘leash” by looping the ends of it over the gallows.

“Well he may seem like a big one to you, but considering the entire ocean he’s just a small fish. Why don’t we throw him back, metaphorically speaking of course, let’s make sure that the bigger fish get their snack.” Mirri helped James pull on the rope now and Rowd soon found himself hanging upside down from the gallows as James and Mirri finished tying several more knots to make sure that he was hanging just the right height above the ground so as to be unable to help himself in any way.

“You won’t get away with this, Highland won’t stand for it! Whoever you people are, your days are numbered!” James jumped up to the top of the scaffold and gave the rope binding Rowd a tight jerk. This caused him to start swaying back and forth even faster than he had been before.

“We’re Prophets of Destruction, we don’t care who the hell we’re pissing off unless they’re the ones who hold our contracts. Your at war with those people, so this is probably gonna earn us a nice bonus. Have fun swinging now loser, I’m sure you’ll be doing it in a different way when they find out you couldn’t even manage to properly slaughter a couple of kids.” James jumped down and landed next to Riou without showing any kind of reaction the impressive vertical distance he travelled in that jump.

“Hey Riou, feeling any better? You know what they say ‘no noose is good noose!’” Mirri jumped down as well, unlike James halfway down she suddenly stopped falling like a human being and started doing it like a leaf in a gentle wind, landing next to James without so much as kicking up a cloud of dust.

“James you make that joke every single time we break up a lynching, hanging, swinging, or otherwise. Both of you able to stand all right?” It had been a great many years since Riou had fallen out of that tree and cried whatever his sister had to say on the issue. His sister... in his good fortune Riou had for a few moments been simply caught up in the spectacle that these two had created and then his own surprise at the fact that apparently he was going to keep on living.

“Nanami, my sister, we have to go rescue her!”

“Already done.” Mirri sad it as materafactly as if she was checking off items she had been sent to purchase in a store.

“We’ve got some horses waiting for us outside the towns walls and she’s with them.” Riou turned his eyes in the direction of the town’s walls.

“And how exactly are we going to get to them, Rowd has to have guards stationed at all every exit to the city.” James crouched slightly before Riou.

“You obviously never seen a nay-kobold jump before kid. Grab me about the neck, try not to step on my tail, and hold on tight.” Riou did, James rose slightly got a running start and jumped. Riou had seen cats jump before. Not often, but he had seen the way that they could sail through the air after butterflies or whatever occupied their interest.

They reached heights and clear distances that no human could comparatively hope to achieve. James outdid even Riou’s estimates easily reaching the top of the nearby item store. Mirri landed next to him a moment later with Jowy holding onto her neck. James got another running start and leapt, and Riou discovered it was best to close his eyes and not think about what might happen if he did lose his grip in mid jump.

Inside five such mighty leaps James and Mirri came down outside the cities gates, not just near their horses but actually landing right in their mounts’ saddles.

“Rowd’s gonna be tied up for a bit, and everyone’s gonna be going be embarking on a vampire hunt so we should be across the boarder before they can even organize a search party for us. Get back on your horses James and I can double up so the three of you have your own.”

There was something odd about Mirri’s words and it struck Riou as he got off of James’ horse and Mirri got on while he went towards the only currently unoccupied animal. It was “his” horse in the sense that it was the exact same one that he had ridden across the boarder to Highland with Blind and Myst.

“How?” James gave his horses’ reins a snap.

“We don’t have to set that brisk a pace, but every journey starts with the first step. Let’s take one of those now since we can talk once we’re moving.” Nanami glanced back at the only city that all three of them had considered home for their entire lives.

“Do you think we’ll ever come back?” Riou grabbed the reins and gave them a light snap to get the horse going.

“Yeah. We’ll all be back to Kyaro some day, But you can never come back to some place you don’t leave first...”

FN: For those who don’t know Shogi, is a Japanese game that you could consider their equivalent of chess.

By the way, in case your wondering what happens to Rowd it goes something like this...

General Seed: (Looking at Rowd who is still swining back and forth) Boy, you screwed up but good.

Rowd: GET ME DOWN FROM HERE!

Seed: I’m not doing it. You’ve been swinging around so long you might end up vommiting on my outfit. You, private with the armor and the face, go cut him down!