"Honestly, I'd like to burn this forest to the ground." The rashei's eyes glared at the trees from above his mask, as if they'd personally offended him.
Some people said the path through the border forest changed every time the Horashans entered it. That was nonsense, of course.
But Shiro still didn't care for the oppressive silence that had clung to them for hours now. Silence…wasn't often a good thing.
One of his companions laughed. "You know King Hoshari would never allow that. This forest keeps the vermin out…most of them, anyway." He eyed the third of the group, a quiet young man whose horse was slightly behind the others'.
The man looked up, blinking. "Sorry, were you–"
The second rashei–proven warrior–laughed again. "Of course not. Why would we be asking the opinion of a simple metai?"
The man winced but said nothing. His jaw hardened in a way only a Karunic's bones could.
"Don't get him angry," Shiro hissed to his ugly-smelling friend. "He might be an apprentice, but you know he could beat both of us with his hands tied behind his back. And he'd do it, too–in a haunted forest like this one, anyway."
He caught himself eyeing the trees once more.
Haunted, never. He'd traveled the forest dozens of times before.
Just not this stretch.
"Haunted my khur," the other man spluttered. Perhaps he'd had a bit too much of a good time the evening before. "That sort of thing is rubbish!"
Reaching out from his position astride his horse, he grabbed a low-hanging branch and twisted it away from the tree before snapping it in half and throwing it underneath his horse's hooves.
After giving the man an annoyed look, Shiro glanced back at the younger warrior. "Arai, why so quiet? Is something bothering you?"
His rashei companion glared back at him out of the corner of his eye, but said nothing.
"I…don't know." Arai, the Karunic metai, frowned. "Something…"
He shook his head, sunlight glinting off his light brown hair. "Something feels off."
The drunken rashei began to laugh loudly. Too loudly.
"Shut up, Yumoto," Shiro hissed again, more vehemently this time.
That man. Always drinking. Shiro was surprised he was still in service.
He turned his attention back to Arai–it was wasted on the other rashei. "Do you know exactly what?"
Arai bit his lip. Shiro waited expectantly.
The Karunic man might be quiet, but Shiro was growing more and more certain that Arai would be useful on this latest mission of theirs.
"Enemy presence–but not deadly," Arai said finally.
"Huh." Shiro scowled. "You don't suppose…the forest?"
He gritted his teeth as Yumoto broke another branch.
Why? What was the purpose?
Then Shiro looked up, startled, as Arai laughed softly.
"Not the forest," he breathed. "Something else. Someone else."
A thwak interrupted whatever bit of insight might have come next. Arai caught his breath as an arrow plunged into the leather pommel of Yumoto's saddle, only inches away from the rashei himself.
Yumoto gasped, his hands tightening around the branch in reflex. Shiro's entire body tensed.
"Grab a bigger branch next time, why don't you, and I'll shoot it instead."
The woman's voice seemed to lilt through the air like the sunshine that sifted slowly to the forest floor. Shiro's eyes widened as he stared at the arrow.
It quivered for a moment before it went still as the rasheis' heartbeats.
"Rakhai," Shiro gasped to himself–the derogatory word for any kind of inconvenient enemy.
A branch moved somewhere up in the treetops. Leaves shimmered to the ground.
Yumoto moved to grasp his own bow and arrows, but Arai kicked his horse into motion and grabbed the older man's arm.
"Don't!" he cried, his voice low but hoarse. "She'll kill us!"
"I can hear you, you know," came the soft voice again–from another direction, this time. "But don't worry. I don't like a mess in my forest."
Shiro's blood ran cold.
"The Eishi girl," he breathed.
It could be no one else–if the rumors were true.
"Don't be whispering."
She sounded…annoyed? Who was this woman?
Shiro realized Yumoto was shaking.
"We're going to…we're going to…!"
Arai's blue eyes locked with Shiro's dark ones.
"We have to shut him up," Arai whispered, and Shiro nodded, taking the other rashei's reins. Clearly, Yumoto was in no position to be of use.
"What…what do you want?" Shiro asked carefully, trying to keep his voice level as he directed it somewhere towards the leaf-speckled sky.
There was no answer.
Shiro eyed the sides of the forest. His face was hot beneath his half-face mask.
"...Is she gone?" he whispered to Arai a few seconds later.
Arai bit his lip. Directed his horse forward a pace or so.
"I can't…"
His fingers clenched around the reins as the voice rang out again.
"I don't have any messages today. But I'd like you three to leave my forest alone."
Yumoto's eyes fixated on his pommel. Rather, the arrow still lodged in it. The branch in his hands fell to the ground, unbroken.
"We…we will!"
Shiro saw that Arai's hands were shaking.
"What?" he hissed.
Arai's face was dark above the mask.
"We're warriors," he murmured. "We shouldn't be running like this."
Shiro swallowed hard as he passed Yumoto's reins back to him.
"What are we going to do?" Shiro shook his head. "We're Hoshari. Foreigners. Everyone knows she hates us–"
"I'm not Hoshari," Arai finished calmly.
Shiro studied the man's face.
"You're not a rashei, though," he reminded him.
"According to your law." His eyes narrowing, Arai slipped down from his horse, his boots hitting the ground in a soft thump.
"Arai!" Yumoto's eyes were wide with fear.
The young man glanced up at him.
"Don't wait for me," he invited softly.
Shiro's jaw tightened.
Arai couldn't be…
"Mount your horse, metai," Shiro ordered. "We leave no man behind."
Arai looked hard at him for a moment.
Then his eyes turned wistfully to the trees as he grabbed his own pommel and pulled himself back up. A small, folded paper fell from between his fingers.
"She's gone now, you know," he muttered.
Shiro shrugged. "Doesn't matter. If you find her, you're dead. You know that."
The man's eyes flashed for a moment.
Then he turned his head towards Yumoto as the three began to move again–slowly.
"Can I see that arrow?"
Yumoto grasped the arrow tightly, then jerked it out of the pommel before he reached to pass it to the metai.
Arai let the reins run loose as he turned over the arrow, inspecting it.
"Homemade," he decided after a minute or so.
"What did you think it was, from a forest rebel?" Shiro's eyes narrowed.
"I was wondering if…she's supplied by someone." Arai sighed. "But apparently not."
"How old is she, anyway?" Yumoto growled to himself.
"I don't know–" Shiro began.
"Seventeen, if the legend runs true," Arai interrupted.
The two stared at him, and his gaze fell.
"I apologize. This is Karunic history."
Shiro hesitated only for a moment before leaning across to brush the young man's shoulder.
"That's alright. You'll learn."
"Huh," Yumoto snorted.
He rubbed his finger across the damaged pommel, then glanced up at the trees.
"Seventeen, eh?"
Arai smiled slightly. "Eh."
Suddenly Shiro smiled as he reached up towards his own bow.
"Why don't you tell us some more of your…Karunic folklore?"
Arai glanced sharply at him, but his smile seemed genuine.
"Well." He hesitated. "I mean… You would already know most of it. There's the Eishi bloodline and legends. There's our dynasty…Karun…" His face stiffened.
"There are legends surrounding your dynasty, too, no?" Shiro noted thoughtfully.
"I suppose so. If you can call a decade's worth of rumors a legend." Arai bit his lip. "They say–"
His words were cut off by the apple that hit the path directly in front of his horse.
The animal reared. Arai grabbed at the reins.
"I changed my mind about the message."
That voice again.
"Also, I'd like the arrow back. Thanks."
Shiro saw the arrow slip from between Arai's fingers.
He had already casually retrieved his own bow from his back while they had been talking. Now Shiro's hand crept up towards his quiver.
"Please don't make me damage your hand."
He froze.
"The message is for Tor'kesh Yazawa," the woman went on.
Except she was seventeen, Arai had said.
So not a woman–a girl.
Tor'kesh? What did she want with the man in charge of Miznema Province?
"Tell him…"
There was a quiet laugh.
"Tell him the rakhai hopes he enjoyed his hunting trip last week. And that she'd love to meet him again."
The laughter died away with the voice. Somewhere in the distance, a branch creaked as if to bid them farewell.
Arai stared at Shiro. "What are you…"
He went silent as Shiro notched the arrow to his bow and took a blind shot behind them.
Arai's face contorted.
But nothing happened. The wind rustled in the treetops almost mockingly.
Shiro allowed himself a breath.
"Huh," Yumoto began. "You missed her, I guess–"
Then the return arrow caught Shiro's hand in midair, pinning it to his own bow.
Rashei that he was, Shiro screamed–a terrible sound. His horse tried to bolt, but Arai had already grabbed its reins.
"Don't need that one back. Now please get lost."
The woman sounded disgusted.
Shiro clenched his teeth in soundless pain as he stared at the younger warrior.
"Shiro…" Arai shook his head, his eyes glued to the wound. "We need to take care of that now."
But Shiro jerked his reins away from him with his good hand.
"No. We get out of here first."