Dai-San - 03 by Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online Page A

broken branch, thick and gnarled, teeming with red and black insects. ‘Too, my people are warriors, a vocation forced upon them by circumstance. We are fierce desert fighters, grown used to hardship and denial; a proud desolate race rich in ancient tradition. Ours, Captain, is a history of slavery and eventual self-knowledge.’
    ‘Your land is distant from the continent of man?’
    ‘From Khiyan? Yes, very. It is easier to sail from the eastern shore of the continent. In fact there is a trade route from Sha’angh’sei. Do you know that city?’
    Ronin smiled.
    ‘Yes. I have spent some little time there.’
    ‘I knew it!’ Moichi laughed. ‘By the Oruborus, we shall meet there one day in different times, and shake each other’s hands and walk along the streets of that great enigmatic city, yes, Captain? For having lived there, you must know that it is a place unrivaled in all the known world for adventure and intrigue.’
    ‘I would look forward to such a time,’ Ronin said. ‘But tell me now of your land.’
    ‘In Iskael I have a brother,’ Moichi began, chewing on a mint leaf which he had just plucked. ‘We were born just moments apart yet we resemble each other so little that my father wondered if we were brothers at all.’
    ‘Surely you are exaggerating.’
    Moichi shook his head; the diamond in his nostril sparked momentarily. ‘My father was an intently devout man and his belief in the God of our fathers was unshakable; His strength, the cornerstone of his life. He suspected, I think, that God had planted one of us in my mother’s womb.’
    ‘Toward what end?’
    Moichi’s great shoulders lifted, fell.
    ‘Who can say? My father was an unfathomable man. Perhaps he longed to see the long-awaited prophet of my people appear within his own family.’ He spit out the dark residue of the chewed leaf, put another in his mouth. ‘My father was quite wealthy in his own way and when we were born he held dominion over a sizable piece of land.’ Screeching, a flurry of red and gold shot by above their heads. ‘But do not anticipate me, Captain, for this is no tale of the king’s two heirs, one good and the other evil. I never wished for my father’s land, just as I never craved to be a warrior. I wished only to travel, to find out what lay over the vast sea, to climb aboard the great ships with their white sails and carved figureheads, which appeared all at once over the flat horizon, bearing men from another world.
    ‘But I was the elder son and my responsibility was great. Our land was immense and required much attention; my tutor rode with me wherever I went to manage my family’s affairs. But ever I would reach a crest, I would turn my gaze to the shimmering sea, lying like spun silver in the sun, and wonder, as I wiped the sweat from my eyes, when I would ride those moving crests.’
    Adrift in a sea of jade, Ronin listened to Moichi’s vibrant voice as he watched the slow parade of the mammoth trees, smelled the humid, fecund air. He bent and picked up a giant horned beetle, its blue-black carapace shining in the diffuse light like burnished metal. He carried it with him for a while before finally setting it down atop a low shelf of rock slanting out of the jungle’s floor.
    ‘One day I came across my brother fighting with the son of a neighboring farmer—a lord, you might say, though we have no word for that in our language save God. Now my brother was no coward but in that time neither was he a warrior though big and strong. His fists were like clubs and he was quick. Thus the table was turned on this boy who had sought a quick battle. Blood streamed from his nose as my brother hit him. He called for mercy and when my brother stopped, the boy pulled a hidden knife. My brother, being unfamiliar with weapons, would surely have died with the first thrust had I not intervened. I knocked my brother aside and grappled with the boy, who was strong and clever. We struggled. The boy died impaled