22 – Being a Better Man

Being a better man was a fucking pain in the ass.

A bitter and chilly wind had assaulted me the whole way up the rocky mountainside, and each step had made the air thinner and colder. I had no love for mountains, never had. Those years in the Paarthian campaign had been cold, wet, miserable, and I’d been skewered by so many spears and gnawed by just about every breed of mountain insect in existence.

Those had been the early days of my rebirth, subduing the mountain clans so Novos could have full control of that region and its resources. I had not been a warrior at that time, certainly not a general. Just a fool armed to the teeth with too much power, a mad dog continually frothing with rage and hate.

Those had been dark and lean years, utter misery. And each step up Mount Gruai brought the memories flooding back in a flash.

“Hate the fucking mountains,” I muttered, the words accompanied by thick puffs of steam.

The ground was coarse and stony, slick with frost, and every now and again a harsh wind kicked up and tried to bowl me over. I would admit to feeling a little tired and sore, that fight with Inumi having hit me harder than I would have expected. It all served to make my mood even more foul.

But, again, I reminded myself that it was for a good cause. That I owed Yomi some measure of gratitude for what she had done, what she was suffering through.

And that a ‘good man’ repaid people for their kindness.

The paths through the mountain were narrow and treacherous, and it did not help that a boreal fog had started to rise past a certain altitude. Eventually I had tapped into a little bit of my magic, creating an aura of heat around myself to ward off the worst of it.

Cold and illness couldn’t effect me in the same way they could a normal man. Certainly, I was underdressed for the harsh climate. But that didn’t mean it didn’t irritate me.

My eyes roamed my surroundings as I ascended the winding path, checking the nooks and crannies along the way, but I still found no trace of the lotus flower Guang had shown me. Really the mountain had little in the way of plant life at all, save for a few thin trees sprouting from the stony crags, and patches of frost-crusted grass that rose in defiance of the barren landscape.

Past a certain point, when I gazed skyward, I could see an imposing silhouette in the foggy peak of Mount Gruai. Walls and tiered towers… The Snake Flower Sect, living in the kind of isolated fortress most wizards would kill to have.

“They’re dug in there good and deep,” I muttered to myself. I thought of Paarthia again. The sieges and the fortresses. And, for a moment, I wondered how Novos would have planned to take the place.

Eventually I found a crack in the face of the mountain, just slightly broader than the span of my shoulders. I worked my way through it, damn desperate to check anywhere at this point, and found myself in a grove bordered on all sides by looming walls of craggy stone.

Streams of icy water trickled down the far wall, feeding into a broad pool. And there, floating on the surface of the water, I saw a few floating lotus flowers.

I allowed myself to grin. “Finally…”

I pressed forward, pale and frost-crusted grass crunching loudly under my boots. All was silent, save for the whistling wind and the twittering of small mountain birds. A normal man probably would have been content to let their guard down, and… certainly I was tempted to.

Then, all of a sudden, the hairs on the backof my neck stood to attention. A shadow flickered above me for a fraction of a second, and I spun just in time to catch a gleam of steel rapidly descending toward my face.

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The blade that struck my palm was a damn heavy thing, the impact sending a shudder through the rocky terrain. But I held my footing, my jaw set in a tight grimace. “Oh damn my rotten luck,” I muttered.

There, holding the blade, was the straining form of Yamato.

“Foreign bastard!” he hissed. “Bad enough you humiliate me, but now you have the gall to set foot on our sacred mountain?! I was going to wait, train to beat you, but this dishonour cannot go unanswered.”

“You again,” I said, watching him intently.

He kicked me, damn hard too, and I grunted as he and his sword lurched away from me. He landed easily on his feet and swept the sword up until he was holding the handle level with his eyes.

“Listen, Boy, I really don’t have time for-”

“I’m not a damned ‘boy’!” he said, grousing in the way only a boy could.