Disclaimer- I think y'all know I don't own any
of the Ronins who appear in this tale or any
other, and if you didn't, I just told you, so
now you do.
Authors Note- to bring anybody new up to
speed, yes, I killed the warlords in the last
instalment! That's pretty much all, now
onward to the next instalment.
First of Four
Solar Flare
In the days after he came into his power Kilkoul made strong his control of the Talpa's lands and turned them
again against their ancient foes. He knew that to bring all the feuding lords together he would have to set them
on a single target. Earth. It was well done, mending the chains Talpa had help us in, providing a return to the
old ways. I saw it all, how he played his generals against each other, gathering the strongest to him and binding
them with oath and spell into his service. Rather having me bind them into his service. There was much contesting
amont these lords to be the first to resume the attack on earth in the hopes of wining lory for themselves, and
raised status in Kilkoul's court. Fools all of them, none were so great as my lost teachers, and I think this
haunted Kilkoul, he was furious to discover that the Warlords had preserved their powers from him. Oh course I
didn't tell him I had the armors, I am not such a fool as that. Although in the days that came after, I nearly
proved myself several other kinds of idiot.
When at last a lord was chosen to go first into the world it was the Hound's Man that was called. He was a strange
sort, and not bright for al his strength, both in arms and in the number of men he commanded. So he went, out
to the boundary, and there he established a holding to his liking and prepared to make an assault on the gates.
In the days before Talpa's ill fated assault the gates had been watched from the other side but never barred.
This had changed, for it seemed, the watchers had turned their hands against us and would keep the people of my
world from theirs. I could hardly blame them. I went to the border as well, the Hound didn't know that though.
Kilkoul did not trust such a one not to overstep his bounds while out of his masers sight. It took some doing
to convince him to sent me, and not one of the other blades left in the palace. I won, I think, only through Kilkoul's
need to trust someone. It is hard to live among souls you can never trust.
I followed after the Hound, and took up residence in an overlooked portion of the building. None saw me there,
and I was free to move as I liked both in the compound the Hound had established, and it the realm of Earth. The
greater gates might be strongly bared, but such gates as I made and used, while not without risk, were possible.
Kayura had showed me the trick to them. I hid nothing when I say that you world, this world of men and machines
is a vast and strange one to me. Coming as I did then from a feudal error left behind in this world many hundreds
of years. I was alarmed beyond words on that first trip I made. I believe I cause quite a stir, dressed as I
was in the garb of my time. I learned later that I had been in things called tabloids for nearly a week after
that first appearance. It really probably didn't help that I carried my ax with me and stopped traffic for over
an hour after nearly getting flattened by what I know now is a bus. I do not like busses, nor any of these machines
that run on wheels without horses. On that same thought, that bus driver had a very extended vocabulary. The
time I spent there, in that part of this world was not spent doing the work of those who thought themselves my
masters. No, I looked ever and always for those who would become my NeoWarlords. I looked then for the first
of the four. I found her to, though not in the place I would have hope, and not in the guise I had expected.
It was then that the Hound finally broke the bar on the gates and made his first venture out into the world of
Earth. In his first sortie his men met with the force who had lain the barrier on the gates, and hungry for the
secrets of such a feat, brought her back to the Hound. When I found what they had done, some time after the fact,
actually. I went to see this person for myself, a luckier thing I may have never done. I came after the guards
had departed for a time and went to look for myself. The cells occupant knelt on the stone floor, arms bound back
behind her and she watched me as I opened the door. I wondered then about the wisdom of leaving her so with the
door open to all comers. Leaving the door open to cast what light there was into the cell I went to get a good
look at her, and was much amazed. Such a face I had not seen in longer than I care to remember. Here were old
words come back to haunt, here in a place o dark, and in a one I could not leave. The child before me now looked
at me with eyes as blank as long empty windows, eyes like unto one of my teachers, Kale's. Finding this one here
changed much, how much I had not yet guessed. Leaving here there was out of the question. I looked then at the
bonds used in keeping her there, the Hound was, it seemed, rather good at devising shackles. The girls arms were
bound across her back so that each hand grasped the opposite elbow. This binding was part of o complex harness
arrangement that held her, by means of a chain to the wall.
I was a long time getting her out of it. Never being especially good at lock work I concentrated on the mechanism
holding her to the wall. It took time, and I was ever expecting to find one of the guards returned while I worked,
but none came. Then we were gone. In all that time neither of us had said a word, I for fear of discovery, but
I do not think that my new companion could have spoken to me had I asked it of her. The harness she wore was one
of the binding spells I had been taught to recognize and once we reached the relative safety of my rooms I got
it of her. It took three different cuts to get the whole thing off her, and I would have been rather mad about
everything but the end, if it hadn't been sch a devious shackle. I chucked the remains of the binding in a corner
and took another look and my new acquisition. Longish hair of a dirty blond color, dark blue green eyes, and a
very confused expression were the only really unique things about the girl. The eyes I couldn't do anything about,
but if I was going to hide her not only from the Hound, but from his evilness, the hair had to go. I took it off
by hands with the same knife I had used for the shackles and the result was many layers of many lengths, the longest
of which just brushed her shoulders. The last thing I did was change the color, I didn't have what I would have
needed to dye all of it, but with a little black and blue dye, it wasn't dirty blond anymore. I had hoped tat
getting the girl out from under the Hound's control would bring her senses back but it hadn't happened by then,
and I didn't have enough time to think about what I was doing. If I had it might have kept me from making Talpa's
mistake with Kayura over again. I went back out into the used parts of the outpost and stole a length of chain
and a flat disk such as were used on the great black dogs on which the Hounds strength was based. From there it
was neither a long process or a hard one to bind the girl to my will. I learned later that her true name was Koranna,
but there for a while she was mine, and I named her Nari. She is mine still, and so is the armor I gave her.
The mindless girl I had stolen from that dark dungeon an a whim had become the first of the four I had to find.
She had become my Nari, my Corruption, and I sent her out to hunt the dark places of the world, but I did not
send her alone.
