Disclaimer: Twelve Kingdom world, plot, and characters belong to Ono Fuyumi.
I re-uploaded all previous chapters after the indentation function was disabled, just so I have a uniformed appearance. There are some minute changes but that shouldn't be too affective.
Early at the double gates of Kokin, a town near the Kei-Kou border, a after Rakushun met his friends, peasants were coming in with carriages and baskets to set up that day's open market in the town center. The town walls were guarded by provincial and local soldiers alike so that, at a glance, they seemed intimidating. They were the reason why the town was safe from harassments like youmas and raiders. Nevertheless, just about everyone knew that once over the walls, those soldiers were as effective as paper-made tigers against the raiders. Presently, a carriage was halted near the town gates. One of the four spear-carrying gate guards was speaking with a young, thin man dressed in faded blue and khaki pants. The carriage driver was slightly bowed, and the guard was frowning like a student during a test. "Is there really no one else you can spare?"
The guard transferred his question to an approaching colleague, and simultaneously the two shook their head negative. "Our last group left with a troop of traveling entertainers just yesterday. We don't have enough people to guard a carriage right now. There aren't just youmas out there, there're also the raiders."
"What's wrong here?"
The carriage driver and the gate guard were equally surprised to see a mouse hanjou leading a suugu. "That's a suugu, isn't it?" one of the guards asked, "Who are you?"
"Rakushun," said the smiling mouse. He stretched his short neck sideways to see around the much taller guards, "What's going on? Can we not go out of town?"
"My teacher and I need to go to Kou, but they won't let us hire escorts," the young man told Rakushun.
"Sending out just two guards to cross Kou border here is just suicidal!" The first guard retorted, "And there're the raiders!"
"Raiders?" The ones Youko wanted to warn me about?
"You don't know? Even people in Gyouten have heard about them," the second guard bent down to make sure Rakushun saw his disbelieving face.
Unaffected, the hanjyuu replied, "I'm from En, and I'm heading to Kou as well. If we travel together, we shouldn't be targeted too easily with a suugu." The young man looked up at the hesitating guards hopefully. "I think I can also pay a little extra," Rakushun added.
"I appreciate your help back there," the professor said to Rakushun through the lifted blinds of his carriage. They were rolling along past rectangular patches of oily green rice paddies and golden yellow flowering colza fields. Three guards accompanied them – one strolling next to two horses that drawn the car, and two trailing behind the party. The mountain ranges that separated Kou and Kei were in sight. From the out-most Kei village was laid a strip of grassland extending along the edge of the lush forest that carpeted down the sides of the mountains. "My name is Shi-en. I teach young children in the Baku province, but I'm originally from Kou," the professor introduced himself. He was a man about forty-five with an easy smile, contrasting to his name, Shi-en (stonily strict). "This is a former pupil of mine, Chunni." The carriage driver stuck out a whip- wielding hand from the front of the vehicle.
"I'm a university student at En, but I'm also from Kou. I'm visiting home," Rakushun said.
Shi-en laughed, "So am I! I'm actually trying to convince my mother to move to Kei with me, now that our emperor had passed away. She lives quite far out from the city, and I'm afraid things might become hard for her."
Rakushun felt uncomfortably embarrassed at hearing that, being reminded of his own mother, and wondered if he should ask his mother to move to En with him. "Kou seems fine now, but if a new kirin isn't born and a new Ou[1] chosen soon, it might be in trouble, isn't it?" he mused out loud.
"So I am worried," said Shi-en, "Even though Kei is quite chaotic still, the new empress seems promising, having just removed an ill-liked officer."
Remembering his end of 'bargain' with Youko, Rakushun asked, "The gate guards were talking about some raiders. Do you know anything about them?"
"Just another group of out-laws, that's all," interjected Chunni from his seat.
His comment appeared to insult their three escorts, as if they were the robbers in question. "Just another group of out-laws!" the leading guard exclaimed without a glance backward. His friends in the rear blew out disapproving noises. Bandits always lurked around somewhere on the passages between villages. Only in countries that had emperors of long reigns, like En, were bandits bed time stories. In a country that has been in turmoil for years, such as Kei, it was not unexpected to have bandits.
"Yeah, maybe," one rear guard said, "but as long as they have Mei- Ou, you don't try n' mess with them."
"Mei-Ou? A self-proclaimed emperor?" Rakushun asked.
"Mei-Ou is what we call 'im, since none o' us got an idea of his name. Heck, none o' us even know how he looks like!" the third guard said.
"Or if he's really a he," added the front guard.
"Right," continued the third guard, "Lord Minkai sent folks out twice, each with a good captain and organized soldiers, to take care of 'em. Twice, that bastard killed the captain before 'e even got near 'im, and those riders are fast. Unarmored, but fast. Those that came back said there was a really loud whistle-like noise coming toward 'em, and the next thing they know their captain was a pin-cushion. That's why we call 'im Mei- Ou, Sounded Doom, or Lord of Death."
When the guards stopped talking, Rakushun nosed them, "You're not sure if he's male or female?"
"No," said the front guard, "No one ever got close enough to see his face, and he's always hooded."
"Some rumors went that he was brought up by youmas which he killed himself when he came to age, and that was why he is as cruel as he is said to be. Other one has it that he used to be a general from Hourai, skilled with horsemanship and archery, and accustomed in killing. He could just as well be a she and you'll never know," the second guard said.
A sudden rolling croak was their only warning as a pair of large kouchos plummeted down toward them with closed wings.
Luckily, they were too heavy to descend far enough to snatch any of them with a steep angle like that. The kouchos scrapped off the top of the carriage, lifted back up into the sky, and prepared for another dive. The horses screamed and tried to tear away from the vehicle, and Chuuni could barely hold them in check. By then, the party had long past the last cultivated fields, but was still several hundred pus[2] away from the sparse edge of the deciduous forest creeping down the foot of the mountains.
The three guards were apparently too frightened to fight the youmas. Not that they had an optimistic chance against the kouchos to begin with. Their only defense seemed to be the suugu, which actually was trying to get at the kouchos, but with Rakushun pulling down at its leash with all he was made of. "Run for the woods!" someone shouted, and Chuuni gave up keeping his horses in check. Two of the guards jumped on the horses, and sped off with the carriage. Rakushun grabbed on to his suugu, and competed for the one guard left on the ground with the diving kouchos.
Suddenly, the suugu leaped up and clamped its jaws on a koucho's neck with no concern for its poor rider, clinging and swinging like a sticky stuffed animal toy. The koucho tried to lift back up with the suugu still attached to its neck.
Amidst the mix of ugly croaking and growling, Rakushun heard another caw close above him. He looked up to see the closing claws of the other koucho and its flushing face between them before everything became disoriented for him. It took him a few seconds to realize he was already in the air, passing the carriage on the ground the size of a peach core. He heard an angry roar, and something else, snowballing to an unbearable sharp whistle within a blink, stopping abruptly above him, and replaced by his captor's cry. A chorus of whooshes came next, and Rakushun felt the gravity took over. The forest beneath him became more and more detailed, and he closed his eyes and braced himself against the expected hard ground.
[1] Ou: literally translate into ruler, king, etc.
[2] A pu is a unit of measure, = length of 2 steps.