Lord Memrot’s audience chamber looked exactly as it had before; stifling, dripping with gold and hypocrisy.
The only noticeable difference was the level of wine in the governor’s goblet (significantly lower) and the level of his anxiety (significantly higher).
When the doors banged open and the crew marched inside; filthy, blood-soaked, and reeking of scorched meat; Memrot actually jumped on his throne, scattering a platter of grapes.
“You…
you’re alive?” he stammered, dabbing his mouth with a silk handkerchief.”And my guards?
My gold?
What of Silent Bliss?!”
Figlin stepped forward.
With a deafening clatter, he slammed his new treasure onto the table right in front of the lord; the severed, golden head of the Custodian, still dripping with residual sludge.
The oak groaned under the sheer weight of the ore.
“Your guards are currently serving as flower beds,” he growled, aggressively adjusting the brass trumpet in his ear.”And this right here is proof that your problems have been…
decapitated.”
Memrot paled, staring into the monster’s hollow eye sockets.
His gaze snagged on the jagged hole in one of them; a perfectly round bullet hole.
“This…
this is pure gold…” he whispered greedily, his plump fingers darting toward the skull.
Instantly, Figlin violently smacked the lord’s hands away with the barrel of his flintlock pistol.
“Hands off!” the pirate roared.”That’s mine!
That’s a tankard!
You are paying the agreed-upon rate for the job.
This scrap stays with me as compensation for spent lead and moral damages!
Besides, the merchandise is defective anyway, it’s got a hole in it!”
Zedora leaned against a marble column, casually toying with her twin axes in a manner that strongly suggested she’d love to test the durability of the lord’s neck.
“You heard the dwarf,” she rasped.”One thousand crowns, and not a single word of complaint.
We saw things your bean-counters couldn’t conjure in their darkest nightmares.
We met…
an entity there.
She called herself Sakurabara.”
Memrot blinked dumbly, staring at the barbarian.
Not a shred of fear registered on his face at the name, only profound incomprehension and deep irritation.
“Saku…
what?” he scoffed, waving a dismissive hand.”What is this gibberish?
Some exotic dancer?
I don’t care about the names of local savages!
All that matters is that the road is clear and the taxes will flow once more.”
Duria rolled her crimson eyes and sighed loudly, polishing her nails against the pauldron of her lamellar armor.
“Baka…
(Idiot),” she muttered to herself.”He doesn’t even realize he was one step away from being an appetizer.” She looked at the lord with sheer pity.”Listen, fat man.
Just pay us and enjoy your ignorance.
It’s a genuine blessing.”
Memrot, acutely aware of the murderous glares aimed his way, didn’t dare haggle.
He tossed them a bulging coin purse as quickly as if it were scalding his palms.
He just wanted these filthy, dangerous thugs to vanish from his perfect perfumed world.
An hour later, they were already well beyond the city walls.
The sun hung low over the horizon, painting the sky a bruised orange; a color that, after their visit to Sakurabara’s garden, felt wonderfully, soothingly normal.
They left the gilded towers of Memrot’s palace behind, turning their steps toward the eastern trail.
Perval, proudly displaying his bruised and battered torso, casually tossed the coin purse in his hand.
His enthusiasm noticeably cooled, however, as he began to do the math out loud.
“One thousand crowns…
divided by six people…” he announced, scratching his thick beard.”That comes out to roughly one hundred and sixty-six a head.
Neira, I’m afraid that’s not going to cover opening a grand hot spring.
We might manage a small foot-massage booth at a county fair.
And that’s in the bad part of town.””That won’t even cover a single night in a high-end brothel…” he muttered quietly to himself.
Neira offered a pale smile.
Walking beside him, she could still feel the phantom, searing touch of the demoness lingering on her skin, but the solid presence of her friends and the sheer normalcy of their surroundings were helping to anchor her.
“It’s alright.
Coin comes and goes.
What matters is that we still have each other.
And…
and my soul.”
Figlin walked at a steep slant, repeatedly stumbling on the perfectly level dirt road.
“Blast it all,” he grumbled, kicking a loose stone.”Here we go again.
The damn ground won’t budge!
How does anyone live like this?!
Everything is so sickeningly stable it makes my stomach churn.” He stopped and hoisted his new “tankard”; the golden skull of the Custodian.
He inspected it against the dying sunlight and let out a vicious string of curses.
“And this?!
Just look at this!
The spinal cavity is perfect, fits half a quart like a funnel.
But here?!”
He jammed his stubby finger straight into the bullet hole that punched clean through the eye socket.”There’s a bloody hole!
It’s going to leak right out the eye!
What a shoddy craftsmanship!”
Perval snorted with laughter, slapping the dwarf on the back so hard Figi nearly face-planted in the dirt.
“Figi, my friend…
that’s your hole!
You shot him there yourself!
Your own impeccable marksmanship ruined your tankard!
Now that is what I call a cruel twist of fate!”
Figlin sulked, staring down at his own handiwork with profound resentment.
“Cursed marksmanship…” he mumbled under his breath.”Gonna have to find a blacksmith.
Needs patching up, otherwise I’ll have to drink incredibly fast before it all spills out.”
Duria walked at the very rear of the group, strolling backward to watch the city walls slowly fade into the distance.
“Sayonara, (Goodbye,) you boring swine,” she murmured, before gracefully spinning around and falling into step beside Lengos.”So, Captain Gloom?
What’s the plan?
Where is this dreadful sense of duty of yours going to drag us next?
Doko, doko?
(Where, where?)”
Lengos adjusted his sword belt.
His face was weathered and exhausted, yet entirely composed.
He gazed down the winding dirt road that led into the untamed reaches of the realm.
He knew Memrot was firmly in the past, and Sakurabara was the inevitable future waiting for them in the dark.
“East,” he declared, pointing toward the distant horizon.”I’ve caught whispers of the Archipelago of Flying Islands, a place where gravity is merely a polite suggestion.
Rumor has it someone out there is hiring mercenaries who aren’t afraid of a steep drop.
And frankly, we could all use something to help us forget the scent of roses.”
Zedora snorted, adjusting the twin axes strapped to her back.
“Flying islands?
Well, at least Figlin won’t be able to complain about the ground being too damn stable.”
Figlin skidded to a halt and jammed the brass trumpet into his ear.
“What?!” he bellowed.”Did you say free wine?!”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Gouyoku (Greed),” Duria’s voice sliced through the fleeting levity like a freshly honed razor.
The vampire stepped directly in front of the paladin, entirely blocking his path.
She rested one hand on her hip and used the other to casually adjust the silk sash holding her katana.
“Chotto matte (Wait a moment).
There’s been a slight change of plans, Captain,” she announced in a tone that brooked no argument.
“The islands will have to wait.
They aren’t flying off anywhere anytime soon, and the calendar is devoid of mercy.”
Lengos arched a skeptical eyebrow.
“The calendar?”
“I just remembered that back in my homeland; ” Duria jabbed a thumb toward the jagged, mist-shrouded peaks looming far to the north, “; the Festival of Silent Ancestors is about to begin.
The rites are only performed when Rubus hangs heavy and bloated in the sky.
The approach of that cursed red moon renders the veil between the underworld and our realm thinner than wet rice paper, allowing the spirits and yokai (specters) to descend and dance among the living.”
A rare, genuine gleam flickered in her crimson eyes; it wasn’t her usual mocking amusement, but rather something dangerously akin to nostalgia…
or perhaps a profound, dark hunger.
“The moon is waxing, the veil is fracturing, which means it is time for my return.
I absolutely must be there.
I have a few highly pressing conversations to conclude with relatives who have been dead for a very long time.
And you lot…” she smiled, a slow, predatory baring of fangs”…will serve perfectly as my armed escort.
My family can be dreadfully difficult.
Believe me, darlings, next to them, your Sakurabara will seem like an innocent little florist.”
The fallen knight let out a sigh, though a faint shadow of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He knew better than to argue with an ancient bloodsucker.
“The Festival of Silent Ancestors…” he repeated slowly.”Sounds like a bloody nightmare.”
“Oh, undoubtedly,” she nodded eagerly.”But on the bright side, there will be sake.
Rivers of sake.”
Perval clapped his hands together.
“Sake and angry ghosts?
Count me in.
Maybe the dead will actually have some decent table manners.”
Figlin, realizing no one was marching east to the mythical free wine, offered a resigned shrug.
“So what is it then?
We’re heading north?
Fine by me, as long as the blasted ground doesn’t shake!”
And so they altered their course, marching to the erratic tune of a capricious vampire.
They left behind the petty political intrigues of a bloated lord and the suffocating shadow of the Crimson Lady’s infinite garden, marching steadily toward an inevitable clash with the restless ghosts of Duria’s bloodline.
Gray Water on the isle of Kumo awaited their arrival.
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