Bastion 2 - Chapter 18

“Who will officiate the duel?” Tae-do roared to the emptying room and all eyes fell on us.

Tae-do twisted his neck to each side, popping it with loud snaps. He flexed and the air around him trembled as waves of zo radiated off his skin. Black veins bulged in his neck, and the color in his eyes was blotted out by the zo. He was mad with power.

Fear coursed through me as I realized the depth of my stupidity. I wasn’t just going to lose the zo trial to him. Whatever had gone into his tea was undoubtedly some kind of zo amplification. With his extra strength, he might not just land me in the infirmary, but another coma.

“There’s a duel? Now?” came the annoyed voice of Pung-sah, the En Manipulation instructor. The shorter man stepped around the hulking Tae-do to see me and pursed his lips. “It’s the end of rest day, boys. Are you sure this is what you want?”

“Yes,” Tae-do growled the word with animalistic madness. His lips spread in a leer as he panted and the veins at his temples throbbed. “I’ve been saving my duel all week for this fujek ganhan.”

Pung-sah gasped. “Mr. Wong, your language is—

Tae-do’s head snapped toward the instructor with a snarl and the shorter man flinched back.

Pung-sah sighed, then rolled his eyes. “We’ll need another teacher, but Mr. Wong, I think you should go to the infirmary. You don’t look well.”

Tae-do turned his feral leer back toward me as he said, “I feel amazing.”

Pung-sah grimaced as he looked at me. “Right. Let me go get another instructor.”

‘Mae, I’m sorry.’ I thought with a resigned sigh.

“Don’t be sorry yet. You can still win, and we can find that signal source without you drinking a potion,” she said, her voice taking on the tone it always did when she was deep in interesting analysis.

‘You’re tracking his signal, aren’t you?’ I thought, unable to contain my smirk. The madness in Tae-do’s eyes flared brighter than before at this, and I started developing my strategy. I didn’t like playing dirty, but if Tae-do was going to cheat, I could do a bit of my own.

The duel hadn’t started yet, so now was my only chance.

‘Are you ready for a run?’ I asked my ghost companion as I performed the dan-jun breath to infuse my muscles with zo.

“Fortunately, I don’t have to do any running. Best of luck. Don’t get us killed,” Mae said with plucky enthusiasm.

I recycled my used ry from revealing Ko-nah’s glimmer into a fresh implement to amplify my words. I puffed up my chest and sent a vibration of ry with my taunt. “Only a weak pungbahnwould have to cheat his way to the top.”

The boys at Tae-do’s table ooh’ed with interest and one jeered sarcastically, “Hope he likes his blood all over the floor.”

“More like all over my fists,” Tae-do replied, his leer widening to pure madness. Just one more push would do it.

“You can’t hit the broadside of a training dummy—”

Tae-do swung. I blocked the blow, though it stung like a dozen zapet stings. I pushed away from his strike with my own zo infusion, launching myself backwards three meters. Ko-nah leapt out of the way with a yelp and Hana called my name, but I couldn’t look back as I turned on my heel and bolted for the gate.

Tae-do’s growling breaths were right behind me, and his heavy footfalls seemed to beat as fast as my pounding heart. Black zo twisted around my legs and propelled me faster as we blasted through the main door into the entrance walkway.

With a burst of strength, I jumped the fifteen or so steps and landed in a roll, then sprung back into a sprint. I dashed over the fallen cherry blossoms on the path and past the trees that blocked my view of escape.

Tae-do screamed, his pace increasing. “Get back here, ttong-gae!”

I’d been called many things in my life, but the equivalent of “scaredy cat” had never been one of them. I wondered if it meant something worse in the kingdom, or if the drugs he’d taken were slowing down the processes in his brain. I smirked at the thought, but that melted away into fear when I saw the entrance gate—

Already shut…

Time for plan B.

‘Which way?’ I asked Mae as I continued my sprint toward the gate.

“South,” she said.

‘Which way’s south?’ I asked in a panic as the gate loomed.

“Right!”

I pivoted like a dancer—just the way Hana had shown me—and let loose a blast of bright ry from the palm of my hand. Tae-do roared in agony, but kept coming as he shielded his eyes. I rolled to the right and let him run straight past me into the door, then took off for the far wall. I hunted along the wall for any tree tall enough, or any stacks of manure, wood-chips, or the likes intended for the garden.

There was nothing. Just wall.

Well, just wall was going to have to do. I glanced over my shoulder to see Tae-do only ten meters back. He was gaining on me. I spared a cycling breath for en munje, then sliced my arm through the air and cast the magic out in an arrow of blue light. The munje slapped against the stone ahead and seeped in.

‘Isolate bricks from the wall in this shape,’I thought to Mae as I envisioned spread out stairs in my mind. With a poof of white dust, the brick wall shifted. Narrow rectangles only a few centimeters deep pulled out from the protective barrier and created a steppingstone ramp to the top.

I activated the zo interlaced with my legs and jumped from the ground to the first step. I gasped as the brick shifted downward from my weight, and pushed off with extra effort to compensate. My heart jackhammered in my chest as I landed on the second stone and pushed off for the next.

Mun-de-Jayu, it was working!

I made it to the final step and gave a huge leap to the finish, hands reaching out for the tall pillar of white stone that protruded from the top. Tae-do bellowed in anger and I looked back to see him still charging the wall. Good. I couldn’t have him give up.

“How will you reach me now, aga?” I taunted again, no ry required. He was already in a rage.

“I’ll kill you!” Tae-do roared below as a deathly black aura flared around him. He jumped for the wall and slammed a massive fist into it with a crack. He hung by one hand as he fitted his feet and other hand into holds we had made by creating the stairs.

‘Where now?’ I asked as Mae created a similar ramp down the other side of the wall to the streets below. The city was buzzing with activity. It was one of the last warm rest nights of the year, and everyone was out in throngs to enjoy it.

I hopped down the stones with more speed than precision as I heard Tae-do scream. I glanced back to see his head poke up over the edge, that same feral joy on his face. He scrambled to get his feet under him, then leered down at me with triumph as the stones I’d used dropped to the ground.

“Cross to the right and follow that street south,” Mae said as a blue arrow appeared in my vision pointing toward a red-canvased tent at the entrance to the next street.

I followed the arrow and rotated my bands for ry mixed with en. My heart revved faster than the saw-blades at the arborum and heat crept along my neck. I spared a breath to collect the heat gathering in my body, then converted it. I had no doubt that Tae-do would be on my tail in seconds, and I’d need another distraction.

‘Can you create my body double like Hana did last year?’

“Maybe,” Mae said with less confidence than I wanted to hear.

The recycled ry circulated through my body until I felt it in every corner, ready to burst free. I held it at bay, trying to remember what I looked like in the mirror. It was no good, I was just going to have to use Cho with darker hair. I skidded around the corner to the next street and darted past a young, elegant couple holding hands.

They shouted their surprise and I glanced back and yelled, “Move!” They looked around in a confused daze instead of moving, and I returned my attention to the road ahead. I heard Tae-do barrel around the corner like a madman, knocking them both to the ground with terrified screams. I couldn’t waste another glance back as I vaulted over a railing near a dark alley.

‘Now!’ I thought, and the purple ry munje ripped out of my body through every pore. The semi-transparent glow of someone who looked sort of like me kept running forward as I dove left into the alley. I used a second tiny burst of ry to shroud myself in shadows as Tae-do ran past, chasing the vision.

I was back on my feet pursuing him in a flash, but he was so quick. Bar patrons shouted and children pointed as Tae-do hunted down my fast-fading ry like a ravenous ty-gre. He was gaining on the spectral image of me as the arrow in my vision pointed lazily to the right, and just in time.

I turned down the next street as the ry trickery faded away on the wind, out of munje. Tae-do skidded to a halt and turned on the spot, his eyes locking on me as I passed from view onto the next road.

A trolley zipped by and I caught the back end of it. I pulled myself around the other side as riders gave startled gasps. I peered through the window to see Tae-do run full-bore around the corner blindly when a woman whacked me with her bag. I scowled at her and dropped to the ground rubbing my head.

Tae-do pushed into the crowd and I calmed my breathing as I kept a fast walk after him. I cycled another bit of ry and cast a weak glimmer over my hair to change the color. After a minute of pushing his way through, Tae-do stopped and turned in a circle. I ducked below the taller heads in the crowd and followed Mae’s arrow in my vision as it turned east.

“We’re getting close,” she whispered to me. “The ping resolution is under a quarter of a second, so we have to be within a kilometer.”

“Where are you?” Tae-do roared with rage and the crowd collectively faltered, half of them looking at Tae-do with confusion. I moved toward the next street, keeping my head low until I reached a break in the crowd. I popped my face up and dropped the glimmer on my hair.

“Over here!” I waved my hand overhead and Tae-do snarled. He pushed and pressed, knocking people aside with abandon as he charged me.

I gave my legs as much zo as possible as I sprinted toward the signal source. What in Mun-Jayu was I going to do when I got there? I couldn’t run forever, and Tae-do would surely catch me if I tried. Fighting him wasn’t a great option, either…

‘Mae, have any ideas?’ I asked, hopeful as the streets died down. There would be no one and nothing to hide behind.

She sighed. “Why am I not surprised? My best advice is to scream for help.”

The smell of salty sea-water wafted on the air and I knew we were getting close to one of the inland docks. That would be an excellent location for someone to set up shop if they’re importing the drugs from somewhere outside of Busa-nan…

“Your whole family will wish you were never born, ganhan!” Tae-do yelled much to close behind me and I pumped my arms and legs harder. Sweat soaked into my dobok but dried against the skin on my face as the cool night air wicked it away.

Mae’s arrow blinked and pointed hard right. I ducked and put my feet into a slide against the gravelly concrete as I rounded the corner. Tae-do’s tackling swing went wide over my head and he stumbled past me. I shot down the dark street with a head start, but the sound of his heavy footfalls were near. I sucked in a breath through my nose and cycled another round of heat through my band for en munje.

Mae’s alert was music to me as she said, “We’re here! Location marked. Routing back to Bastion.”

The arrow in my vison pointed right again and I followed blindly in the near darkness. There was a tug on the back of my dobok and I fell back into something hard—likely his knee. Sharp pain split down the side of my head and I fell to the rough stone ground. I rolled to a stop with a grunt as my ears rang like mad. Something hot trickled down my sweat dried neck as I pushed myself back to standing.

Black fire licked up Tae-do’s arms in the darkness and steam lifted from his head. He leered with madness, his white teeth glinting in the moonlight. “Now I’ve got you.”