Jemini

This chapter was originally posted in 2 parts. I had a difficult time writing this chapter due to the new concepts it was introducing, and it was a slog to get through, causing me to have significant delays that caused me to miss the posting deadline. Rather than keep my patrons at the time waiting, I just decided to post what I had up until that point and post the other half later.

The two parts will be merged for this group. I hope the transition is smooth, but I can't say for certain whether it will be or not.

Aetstillan Recen, or simply Aestillan for short. It was the city that served as their ultimate destination for this escort and infiltration mission. As it came into sight, it turned out to not really be much of a city at all for two boys who were used to the towering sky-scrapers and bustling metropolatin areas of Earth.

From what they could see on their outside approach, the buildings were mostly 1 or 2 stories tall, and built  in a white plaster style reminiscent of a historical Mediterranean village straight out of Italy. The blinding white was the first thing they could see from miles away.

The second thing that they could see were the people lining up just outside the village. And the third thing, was the fact that they were all armed and appeared to be dressed in some crude form of armor. It seemed they had noticed the large group moving their way, and had taken it as a threat.

The Hidan escorting them seemed completely unconcerned with this, and simply proceeded on their treck toward the city, only slowing down when they got to be a few hundred feet out. After that, the riders halted, and Nandin who had decided to personally lead this venture hopped off his mount.

{I and two others from the tribe will go with you from here on foot. The rest will remain here.} He said, and then nodded to two other experienced men of the tribe who also dismounted.

Of course, due to prior arrangements, Levin and Rolwen knew they were not being counted as members of the tribe at the moment. After they got themselves arranged better, the three Hidan began leading the rescued captives on the way toward the city.

Rolwen whispered to Levin to pay attention to how the guards interacted with Nandin and the others, as it would be important. Half way there, the people in the hastily assembled militia seemed to realize what was actually going on here, as one by one they started lowering their guards, until they finally went from ready to fight to standing casually at attention with hard looks on their faces as they began scanning over the faces of the people in the approaching crowd.

A single representative from the guardsmen, dressed in the most put-together set of armor of the lot comprised of what appeared to be a gleaming brass helmet, and some form of brigandine, making for an out of place seeming combination that would make any armor historian from Earth foam at the mouth. He was carrying a spear, as were most of the other people in this militia, with the tip now directed skyward as he carried it casually by his side.

{I greet you, representative of the riders. I see you have rescued some of our people. May I ask under what conditions you have found them?}

Nandin gave a slight nod of his head toward the man who spoke, and seemed to have a somewhat grim look. {Those of the tribe I hail from had discovered the bandits of this region, and tracked them to the camp they had settled at. These are the ones who they had left alive and held captive. We promptly eliminated every one of the bandits after deciding it would not be possible to return both safely to the city. As such, we will not be demanding anything in trade as we have brought no slaves to sell.}

{I see.} The guards’ representative had an uneasy look on his face when he heard what Nandin had to say. {I had heard there were Hidan in the area. It is rare to see you this far west of the great forest, and so far from any elven lands. We thank you for dealing with the rogues who have plagued us, and for returning the citizens they had taken. Will your tribe be staying in this area long?}

{Hmm… We do indeed have reason to settle in this area for a time. I cannot yet say for how long.} Nandin replied.

{I see… well, if that is the case, then I would ask you as a representative to stay nearby for a short while. The city lord may have need to speak with you.} The man said.

Rolwen tensed instantly when he heard this as he remembered back to the brief run-down that Nandin had given him. There were only two reasons why the Hidan and people from the city would interact, and Nandin had already said there were no bandits to be sold as slaves.

The grizzled old war-veteran of the Hidan gave a stiff nod at the man’s request. {I understand. I will bring news back to the riders I had brought along that we will be staying here for the night. After we have finished the negotiations, I shall bring back everyone I have brought from the Hidan.}

This was an odd choice of words, but Levin understood the man’s meaning loud and clear. This was not a message directed at the guardsman. It was for them to hear. He was saying that they had to finish their little spying venture and return back with the riders when they left. And if he understood it, he was quite sure Rolwen would as well.

After Nandin left, there was a lot of mixed emotions as the hastily assortment of guardsmen began taking stock of the people who had returned. It was time to figure out who had been returned to the town, who had been captured on their way from some other town, and who was missing entirely from this collection of people.

The cover the boys had decided to enter the town with was as the orphaned children of people who had been traveling to this city. Some of the women, Gwendir being among them, had offered to take them in as a temporary surrogate mother for the sake of their cover. This group knew exactly what they were up to, and were very willing to help out after all they had given them.

Rolwen would have none of it. He had shut them down immediately every time they had asked, and told Levin quite pointedly he was not to even consider taking on any such offers. He didn’t want any of them getting into trouble.

If they had a cover story that gave them an attachment to someone, it would raise questions when they eventually disappeared. Operating on their own, they would have a harder time seeing all there is to see about this society. They could get the view from the bottom, the view from the streets and the impovershed. They would not be able to see as much about family life. However, it would make it a whole lot easier to disappear without raising any questions, and indetectability and freedom of movement were a valuable trade-off for what they lost in their information gathering ability.

The boys had been staying off to one side as people were milling about, having tearful reunions as others were looking lost as though all their hopes had been crushed all over again. Eventually, some people started walking off back into the city. This was when Rolwen hit Levin on the shoulder.

“Let’s go.” He said, and then pointed to a man who was walking a woman back into the city.

It took him a second to figure out what he was on about, but he followed along anyway. For a second, he actually thought Rolwen might have gone behind his back and made a deal with this woman, even after all the talk about not doing anything of the sort.

He quickly pushed the notion out of his mind. That was a ridiculous idea. He knew exactly what Rolwen was really up to, and followed along with him as they tailed this pair.

After a little while, he noticed there were a number of other people leaving and going back into the city as well. It wasn’t long after this that Rolwen started slowing his pace as they started to grow distant from the people they were tailing.

Levin was watching Rolwen for cues, knowing that any second now the infiltration would move on to it’s next stage.

As they continued to walk, more and more familiar faces split off from the loosely knit group of wandering people re-entering the city, and more and more curious new faces were wandering out of their homes and the tearful reunions started all over again.

They both found themselves unconsciously stopping to watch a few of these encounters, before they hastily picked up the pace to avoid being noticed.

{Umm… hey! Let’s go down to the river!} Rolwen blabbered out in the language of the plains. “We should probably avoid English and Elven for a while.” He added in a barely audible whisper.

With that, the boys started running down the street, going more or less un-harassed by the locals. Before long, they could see the Neruu river, a name they had learned from the rescued locals as they were helping them to make camp outdoors.

There were several ports arranged along the river, and they could see a number of people in colorful richly dressed robes mixed into the crowd. The buildings had also become more elaborate in this area, and the streets were far better kept.

Most surprising of all, though. Levin could sense it. In his training, Asaren had been starting to teach them how to sense another person’s spirit energy, even with human senses. It was part of the fire kata phase of the five elements style, and it was something she’d stated she was even able to use on Earth.

Right now, his spirit senses were picking up a clearly far higher level of spirit energy in the area, especially from a few particular robed individuals mixed into the crowd. They weren’t to Asaren’s level, or even her mother, but some of them were just a little shy Eirlathion in strength.

“Shit! Mages!” Rolwen blurted out, blatantly going against what he’d just said earlier about avoiding English.

They turned and ran up river, doing their best to avoid being noticed. Levin felt someone’s eyes on his back as they did their best to run away. This was no mere paranoia. This feeling of having eyes on you was also a function of detecting another person’s spirit energy. And, there was little doubt it was one of the local mages who had taken notice of them. They may have been learning to detect spirit energy, but neither one of them had senses sharp enough to sense the attention of someone who had low levels of power like a common person. It could only be a mage who had triggered their senses.

They kept running until they were at the edge of town, and settled down on the banks of the river.

“Crap!” Rolwen muttered again. “I, uhh… Umm…” {Ah-hah. Well, I did not expect the port to be the rich district of the town.} He said with a nervous laugh, being purposefully loud and projecting his voice for anyone to hear. “Ah, crap though. I did not expect to find human mages here.” He muttered, looking absolutely terrified.

“One of them was definitely watching us.” Levin said.

“More than one of them.” Rolwen said. “Crap. This fell apart a lot faster than I’d have ever expected. I mean, our cover’s not blown or anything, but this could turn bad very quickly.”

“Should we run back to Nandin and the others? Call it off?” Levin asked. “Maybe just the information there are human mages here will be enough.”

Rolwen sat in silence for a while. “I don’t know. That would be safest…” He was looking around very worried, and then he sighed. “Ah, we can’t pull out after going through all of that effort to get in here. We should try to find out more. Actually, how about we wait and see what those mages will do? The noticed us. Seeing what the think about whatever they saw in us and seeing what they do with that information should be a huge gain for our mission here.”

Levin wasn’t so sure about that. He felt for sure like this would get them in a lot of trouble. The one thing Asa had drilled into them was that a Ninja’s most valuable tool was the ability to remain inconspicuous. They had definitely just failed hard at that part. They should probably just call this mission compromised and get out of here.

But, despite his misgivings, he definitely had to agree with Rolwen on one thing. After all the effort they went to in order to infiltrate this city, he would feel like it was even more of a failure if they just ran away back to the escort party now.