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___The following day, Seifas assigned himself to scouting—again.
___The sun threw shadows through forests, as he loped around close hills and quiet coves of lakes. The shadows and light lay patchy on him. Seifas embraced and used the shadows, sent by sun or stars; but even after the night before, the shadow of his life still lay on him.
___He didn’t embrace that shadow. He bore it in shame.
___While on patrol, he wouldn’t be fighting a losing battle against his commander’s selfishness.
___Yet, he also knew that by his absence the battle was lost.
___Still, out all alone, he could forget the shadows in his life—
___until he chanced on a forest glade, where a girl sat watching a flock of sheep.
___Eighteen hours later, Seifas would record what happened—and so commit his journal to an empire not yet born:
___“The midsummer sun glares into the glade—reminding me, that what I do will be seen by the Eye. I can feel myself, there in those shadows once more, wondering what to do.
___“Should I tell the brigade?
___“Should I warn the girl and her family, to protect their precious flock?
___“Should I simply leave, saying nothing to anyone?
___“I…we…should be helping this girl!
___“But, we also need to eat.
___“Yet—if we take the sheep, then how do we differ from brigands??”
___Weighed by his doubts, Seifas waited.
___He wanted to pray to Macumza, the Agent who guarded the paths of the Hunting Cry. But only a Matron could have that communion—and now the Matrons were gone.
___He would have even prayed to the Eye for guidance. But the Eye seemed far beyond every star in the sky.
___Waiting was easier, and doing nothing.
___So, he did.
___The soldiers he soon was seeing, slipping through the trees, didn’t wait.
___They acted. Although, like many men, they couldn’t even stalk a sheep.
___The animals scattered; and in their distress, the shepherdess jumped from her rock in fright.
___A woman and man, both in light armor, leaped from thickets, into the path of the girl.
___“Gotcha now, my—aaaow!” yelped the man; the girl had smashed his head with her staff.
___“Pike, really, you are impossible,” muttered the woman, who reached and snagged the girl by her hair. The shepherdess shrieked and flailed with her crook; but the woman walked, steadily pulling the girl off balance. “Long hair; bad idea my dear,” she mused. “Then again—keep it. You may find it useful in other ways…”
___“Get a move-on!” snapped the sergeant to the others, who had paused in their chasing to watch and laugh. They returned to killing the scattering sheep.
___Seifas was already moving.
___The juacuar crept, outside the glade’s wide edge, his belly low, his aasagai across his back. The girl might not be in danger, yet; surely the woman would remind them, Seifas thought, that they were men not beasts.
___Still, the girl would be the key. If he attacked immediately, they might attempt to use her against him. If they didn’t take her, he would follow them to find their camp.
___If they did take the girl, then first he would kill her guards. Although he would spare the woman’s life, if possible.
___Seifas was a soldier—and he was of the Hunting Cry. He knew all plans were uncertain; and no one knew more than the Guacu-ara how an uncertainty could lead to death.
___However well he planned his attack, he might be slain this afternoon—over a handful of sheep, and one poor girl.
___Still; a better reason to die, than any he’d recently had—or could reasonably hope to ever have again…
___“So, good friends!”
___Seifas froze, balanced on fingers and toes.
___He and the others stared with shared amazement as a fair-skinned, bearded man strode out of the trees.
___The man was dressed in simple clothes—though something about them itched the back of Seifas’ mind—and he carried a flutewood stalk.
___This unexpected apparition calmly paced across the glade.
___“I see, young miss, the market has come to your family,” chuckled the stranger. “Did they offer you fair price?”
___Even the girl had no idea, whether or how to answer! Not knowing what else to do himself, Seifas resumed his meticulous crawl around the clearing. Securing her freedom had now become more pressing—or, perhaps Macumza had sent help after all…?
___The sergeant tried some bluster: “Who’re you?! And why’re you here?!”
___“I am merely someone seeking service, like yourself,” bowed the smiling man, solidly settling near a slaughtered sheep. “I think that covers both your questions admirably! May I ask the price you promised to her?”
___Seifas continued flicking glances back and forth between the glade and his chosen path, carefully picking obstacles out of his way.
___“None of yer business,” growled the leader.
___Seifas could no longer see the stranger’s face, but the man still sounded like he was smiling…
___“That tells me these sheep, and this young lady, are none of your business. If that is the case, and if she requires, then I am prepared to make it my business.” He chuckled again, and gave a slight bow to the girl.
___Seifas would relive this moment, in his journal.
___In some ways, he would relive it the rest of his life:
___“I feel my heart pound—with emotion? No, more! Something I’ve lacked, for so many seasons, threatens to blind and to suffocate me!
___“It is hope.
___“I am snarling now, blinking away the tears my heart is crying. I will never live without hope—never again!
___“I will find the hope to have, or seek my death in finding it!!
___“I can see the girl; she doesn’t dare to hope; she wants to dare to hope…My heart is bleeding—its scabs fall away!
___“I promise her: I will share the hope I find, or seek my death in sharing it!!”
___The soldiers didn’t know of this doom, creeping toward them around the glade. They kept attending to the smiling stranger.
___“An admirer, eh?” the sergeant snickered. “What, no ladies your own age to play with, out here in the hind end of nowhere?” The other soldiers chortled.
___The woman whispered loudly to the frightened girl: “I’m sure you can do better than this peasant, my dear! In fact, I guarantee it: from these fellows here as well as their friends!”
___Seifas felt his fingers digging furrows in the ground.
___This woman, who would murder the hope of her common sister, would not escape him while he lived…
___The stranger shrugged his shoulders. “I can listen all day long to your baseless slander. Eventually, her family will wonder where she is. In any case, I think you soon will be facing someone far more wrathful than I!”
___“Well, then,” retorted the sergeant, “we had better run away with our meal and our fun, if we want to live!”
___You cannot possibly run away quickly enough, Seifas assured him silently…
___“Come and stop us if you dare, you lone buffoon,” the sergeant challenged. “Let us see that weed you carry parry steel! Clov, you get the sheep!” The youngest soldier began to move.
___“You will be quite embarrassed, if I brought some reinforcement,” smiled the stranger.
___Seifas and Clov both jerked to a stop at this!—though Seifas instantly forced himself onward. Clov glanced around uncertainly.
___“Look at the girl,” continued the stranger, “then at me, then at yourselves. Who doesn’t belong?”
___Indeed, he looked as different from them as Seifas himself—although in an opposite fashion! Now, only one straight line through trees and brush divided the juacuar from his striking point…
___“So, I am not from the area; therefore, cannot be here to see the young lady; who certainly is—my apologies, miss—a little too young to be courting.”
___Sweat ran down the sergeant’s face. Was the stranger a scout for a squad? Or…was he perhaps a magus?
___Seifas could feel the sergeant breaking beneath the strain; and knew his time had run too short. He wouldn’t be able to strike the first blow…
___“Clov!” the sergeant shouted. “Get the bloody sheep!”
___The brigands tensed themselves as Clov edged forward, twitching his eyes from tree to bush to rock. He paused at the body nearest the stranger, trying to think what to do.
___“I truly am sorry,” the fair man said. “You know you shouldn’t be taking that sheep.”
___Clov looked back at his fellows.
___“Go on,” the woman coldly ordered. “Let us see what happens.”
___Clov stooped, and reached a hand.
___With a whistling crack, the flutewood snapped against his other wrist. The startled brigand reflexively dropped his sword.
___“Tsk,” the stranger chided; then, whoop! as Clov dove forward from a crouch, attempting to grapple. The fair man spun, without much grace—the flutewood cracked through the air again, flatting the brigand’s neck between his helmet and studded jacket. The soldier fell, unmoving.
___Seifas scurried, no longer worried about being heard.
___“Oh, well,” the stranger sighed, as the sergeant and the third of the brigands launched themselves into action.
___The third man closed into striking range first. The stranger dodged his poorly-timed swipe by simply backstepping; then darted left and ahead, as the soldier swung a backstroke. But the stranger, inside the soldier’s reach, blocked the stroke by raising the staff at a crossing angle.
___After a pausing thought, the fair man punched the brigand.
___A clever move for an amateur, Seifas thought: the stranger’s hand had been held high to pull his staff on guard against the counterstrike—
___—but the brigand’s bulky helmet blocked the still-clutched flutewood, keeping knuckles from meeting the nose!
___The fair man grunted; then flicked a finger into the eye of the brigand.
___The third man yelped and threw his hands to his face—punching himself with his own guard!
___The stranger’s sudden dash a moment ago had put this man between himself and the sergeant. Now the two unwounded antagonists circled around the staggering third.
___The stranger now kept quiet. Seifas watched, unmoving, filled with curiosity. The fair man shifted grips on the pole, his pale face pursed in thought.
___Then with a grin, he glided in behind the central man, whirling his pole in a striking loop to harmlessly thump his enemy’s chest.
___“Char take ya!” cursed the still-blinking man, lunging a countermove—right into his leader!
___“Fool! It’s me!” the sergeant cried, and parried the strike. The stranger, rebounding the flutewood, pulled it around and thrust it over the middle brigand’s shoulder. This creative gamble paid: the pole-tip pounded the sergeant, driving the nosebone deep in his skull.
___“Sarge!” the man in the middle screamed, as his officer sank to his knees.
___The stranger jumped back into a pre-lunge stance; and then, his hands neck-high, he thrust again—at the vulnerable gap between the vest and the helmet: snap!
___The last man shouted and finally leapt to attack from where he was guarding the girl—but:
___“Pike! Stop!” the woman barked. “Get back here!” The thin man yanked in his tracks; he backpedaled, twisting his face in rage. The stranger, who still was smiling, heartily twirled his weapon back to a hiking position, as he turned to face the guards.
___“Enough of this,” the woman muttered; she jerked a knife from its sheath and held it out to the throat of the girl. ___“Drop that stick and submit to the mercy of Pike, here—or else she dies.”
___Her tone was level and deadly.
___The smile of the stranger finally faded.
___“There will be little mercy,” he said, “coming from your direction, I think.”
___Indeed.
___A collapsed-carbon spike punched through the woman’s knife-arm just above her wrist. Her hand popped open, dropping the knife, as the pick was yanked from her arm. Pike heard her gasp, and twitched his head in time to see a dark blur whirl in a three-quarter spin around the side of the woman. The blur became a blood-bespattered spectre—ebony-skinned, ivory-toothed, gripping a devilish tool, the sharpened pommel driven through bone, between her ear and eye.
___The woman wasn’t even looking at her fiendish slayer; yet she dropped from the pommel-spike with infinite horror in her eyes…
___Pike tried to scream and turned to run.
___He couldn’t run fast enough.
___“Afterward,” Seifas would write, “we watched each other, black and white, at a cautious distance.
___“The girl had long since run away to find her father and family—I am afraid I frightened her.
___“But, I didn’t frighten him.
___“I do believe I impressed him, though: he didn’t smile at me, at first.
___“After a time, he spoke.
___“‘Well,’ he said.
___“‘Well,’ said I.
___“‘All manner of things shall be well,’ he murmured. The ghost of a smile appeared on his face.
___“‘I am Seifas.’ I did not add, ‘of the Guacu-ara.’ He wasn’t blind.
___“‘I am…’ and he hesitated.
___“Then he said, ‘Jian.’ And smiled a little more.
___“‘Well met, Jian.’ I did not know the name. ‘You carry yourself with honor.’
___“‘I like to speak a little softly,’ he said with a chuckle.
___“‘Your stick won’t last very long,’ I warned. ‘Perhaps I can find some steel for you.’
___“‘Perhaps,’ he agreed.
___“And then:
___“‘Would you know someone willing to pay fair price for slaughtered sheep?’”
Also semi-coincidentally, the narrative switches back to (mostly) standard narrative form for the chapter: back long ago when I was first composing the book I had originally thought I would try a journalesque style of composition similar to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and this is when I realized, yeah, I just can’t get that to work with some things, like action sequences. Not long afterward I decided I should avoid journal-entry chapters as much as possible anyway, but I’ll include a few more in this first Section to help acclimatize readers to the concept.
(More charitably, some of us operate on the Universal Maxim rule: all good maxims crop up at least once in any world’s history. 