The prince couldn’t be too happy about his undignified position.
Prince Equinox had his ankles and wrists bound together by a rough rope that made his skin itch. Maybe he shouldn’t have said that the bartender’s face mirrored the rear end of a baboon. But he had, only because it was half true. And only because he was half drunk.
He’d never been half drunk before. Not even a quarter drunk.
And now he was on the back of an intentionally ungentle horse going to only the gods know where, at speeds only the gods can match. Not that he could see where they were going, since his eyes were covered by a ragged cloth that smelled of horse poop. Or was that just the horse? The prince thought it mattered little. Not that he could pinch his nostrils shut anyway. He must endure the smell.
The manner the wind slapped his hair backwards and his cheeks raw told him all he needed to know. He was now far from where he had been.
The horse must have galloped over a rock. Prince Equinox tightened his stomach, but the impact still hit him uncourteously. “Ow.”
“Quiet over there!” a man on another horse said. Equinox had learned that whoever it was he rode with was a silent fellow. The one on the other horse did all the talking. “Unless you want another bloody lip.”
Equinox could still taste the metallic tinge of his own blood in his mouth. “I really am quite piqued about your obsession with my lips.”
One of the riders grunted, the one with him. The other one grumbled. “You blabber too much for your own good.”
Now how many times have I heard that? The prince was no longer half drunk, only maybe a quarter drunk. Or a quarter of a quarter. That makes me an eighth drunk. It was an eighth too many to try to make an escape.
A league or two ahead, or perhaps half of that, the air cooled. The prince had been wriggling his wrists and ankles, for hopes of a captor’s miscalculation, a loose knot. Half a league behind, he had found one. Now his limbs were promptly loose, but he kept the ropes on for show.
He had seen the bandits before they blindfolded him. They were both larger, both older, both fatter, and were both armed. The last one was what concerned the prince the most. Maybe the last two. Even if he were to spring from the horse, considering he could balance himself upon landing, he would have no weapon whatsoever to defend himself with.
They had taken all his arms, including his sword, the golden-glinted Dawnstrider. If they were to see the crest beneath its pommel... No, he thought. That could mean disaster. He wondered if shoving the bandit off his steed and charging the horse straight to the other would do the trick, ultimately deciding against it. An eighth drunk is too drunk. I must think of something else. I must use my wit.
It was his wit that landed him on this horse in the first place. The prince waited.
After a mile’s ride, the horses trotted on shallow water. The splashes from their hooves sprayed Equinox’s face. He appreciated the cool spray. Cool and salty.
There was a splashing farther ahead. “And who is that? Do you think to take him to the kap?” a grumpy man said. He had a voice that sounded like wet mud. Kap? Did he just say kap?
“The lad messed up our plan,” explained the loud bandit. “And besides...” The prince heard a jangling of metals —a jangling that sounded too familiar. That’s my bag.
“Ahh,” the grumpy man replied. “Fruit or sprout?”
“Mayhaps both, but we’ll know once you let us in.” There was rancor in his voice that made the last statement sound like a threat.
The threat was answered with a splash of water and the tapping of a wooden stick on stone. “Fine then, but I’ll warn you, the kap is not in the best of moods.”
“I can imagine,” answered the loud one. The silent one unhorsed the prince. The solid land beneath his feet felt like a warm embrace. Equinox tried his best to keep the ropes from falling off his wrists and ankles, so he had to squiggle awkwardly whenever he moved. “Get on with it!” urged the loud one. The silent one pulled him by the arm.
Waves lapped on the shore near to where they were, and on cue, a few steps ahead, Equinox’s feet plunged shin deep into shallow water. The current tugged at his feet, not enough to offset his balance, but more than enough to loosen the rope and send it careening into the sea. He felt it flow away, despite the prince’s best efforts to keep the rope between his legs. All he could do now was hope the bandits didn’t see.
The prince heard the waterfall on their approach, but he didn’t expect them to walk under it. The pounding water on Equinox’s head took him by surprise, wetting his tunic and trousers. A surge of pain spiked inside his skull, where the water had pounded—his nagging headaches. I thought you’d left me for good. He shook his head, trying to jog the ache away. He thought wrong.
He heard the loud bandit’s footsteps stop. “Tight fit here, yeah? Keep your head down low.” A calloused hand pushed Equinox’s head downwards, until a jagged rock gashed him on the forehead. “Not that low!” Another ache. The prince stood, albeit a bit crouched, and felt his way through a narrow crevice between rocks. The pass being a ‘tight fit’ was an understatement; it was a suffocating fit.
Somewhere, Equinox’s wrist binds were snagged by a protruding rock, ending the rope and the prince’s close-knit union. He held his hands together pretending they were tied.
When they reached the other side, one of the bandits pulled his blindfold off, revealing a dank and stony chamber where the only source of light was a craggy circular opening above. Lone rays of sunlight coursed through it. Remnants of charcoal and burnt wood remained at the center of the chamber—last night’s bonfire. Across it, a dirt-faced young man sat cross-legged on a rock. His tangled hair draped across his tattered shirt and sash which bore a sigil unfamiliar to the prince. With the chamber’s darkness, the sash’s details were hard to discern. Light twinkled on the face of the silver blade that rested on the young man’s lap.
He was alone. “I don’t remember the plan involving a boy.” His voice echoed. Water continued to drip on the faces of rocks.
“Kap.” The loud bandit walked a few paces and bowed his head. He placed the prince’s bag to the kap’s left. “This boy is both fruit and sprout. A golden apple.” He handed the kap Dawnstrider. The kap’s eyes widened at the sight of the sword. When the sunlight glanced on its scabbard, the chamber illuminated. Then the kap set the sword down, and the room dimmed again.
“A boy of value,” the kap said. “Yet you don’t even bind him.”
The bandits faced the prince, their eyes darting from wrist to ankle. The loud one’s face twisted. “What?!?” The silent one closed in on the prince and inspected his wrists, mournfully shaking his head.
The kap stood, holding Dawnstrider. “Leave us.”
The loud bandit bowed his head and shriveled, withering behind and back down through the entrance. The silent one simply left, not bowing, the prince noticed. The kap had one sword on each hand, the gold on the left and the silver on the right. The swords were similar in a sense the prince couldn’t quite grasp… which was high praise because Dawnstrider was one of its kind. Castle-forged steel imbued with gold mined from the peaks of Buwan Mountain. The silver one though…
The prince’s Dawnstrider was heftier, thicker with more breadth. The silver sword was a form of blade that the prince was unfamiliar with. It was slim and curved slightly to one direction. It didn’t even have a sword guard or a pommel. All it had was a grip wrapped in a thin white cloth. Both the swords were tucked into their scabbards. Equinox made sure to keep his own weapon’s cover plain, to not attract unwarranted attention. The silver’s scabbard was painted over with eccentric colors of yellow and brown and blue, depicting a scene the prince couldn’t quite see.
“It’s an eagle flying through a sunflower. A new sigil.” The kap’s voice grew lighter, more slender without the bandits around. His sash was detailed with the same art, Equinox now saw.
“Why the sunflower?” the prince asked. “On sigils, it’s more custom to use the sun.”
The kap’s mouth twitched. “We like to soar for more achievable destinations.” He set the two swords back on the rock and sat. “Please, sit with me, my prince.”
Equinox’s eyes scanned the chamber, his attention snapping back to the small entrance.
“Don’t worry. It’s just us here.”
“You know who I am.”
The kap tapped the ground in front of him, beckoning the prince to sit. Equinox obliged. “There is only one prince, right?”
“Depends on who you are.”
“Is that so?” Small insects skittered along the edges of the chamber, slithering between the cracks in the rocks. The prince wondered of alternate exits he could slither away to if things went sour.
“So,” the prince spoke. “Who are you?”
Now closer to the kap, he was thinner and smaller than Equinox expected. Slimmer, like his sword. His face was crusted with dirt, but he had clean features. He wouldn’t be surprised if they were about the same age.
“I am Kalen Moras of the Moras clan, kap of the Core Glades, and daughter of the late Kalin Moras, the jade wolf.”
Daughter? That took the prince aback. Kalen saw.
“What?” He—she! tilted her head sidewards. “First time to see a girl?”
“No. I —” The prince blinked. In some weird way, now that he knew she was a girl, she looked more like it.
Kalen smiled. “Don’t worry, prince. I get that a lot.”
Water dripped, plopping to a shallow pool somewhere to the side of the chamber. “A girl kap, rarer than rare,” the prince said.
“Rarer than a golden apple? The second goldest of them all? I don’t think so.” She smoothed her hand over Dawnstrider. “I heard some of my men talk of your exile. Thankfully, they don’t know you by face, as most people in Clavore don’t. Locking yourself in that big castle of yours and all that.”
“They locked me in, not the other way around.”
“Ah is that so? Hmm.” She curled her brows. “I usually don’t care about the qualms of your royal family. I think it’s all so tiring and dramatic, don’t you? Obviously this one is different. You’re here, so I have to care. Tell me, what brings a prince to the Glades?”
They studied each other for a while. Hesitant to tell the truth, the prince thought it unwise to lie in the kap’s domain. Was it gold she wanted? Silver? Fruit or sprout? Perhaps both.
“I am not a bandit,” Kalen said, seemingly reading his mind. “I will not ransom you.”
“You’ll forgive me for being skeptical.”
Kalen chuckled. “And you’ll forgive me for being brash and impolite. I was never trained in court or in proper decorum. I always thought high-end fashion and courtesies to be largely, what’s the word, unhelpful for survival.”
“They are,” Equinox agreed.
“Then why do you uphold it?”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
A grin curled on the kap’s lips. “The rumors of the townspeople are true. You do have a sense of humor.” She flexed her hand. “That’s what I’ve been asking all this time, my prince. As much as I want to extend to you our hospitality, your presence brings havoc, yeah? The bow and hammer. I am strong, my prince, but for them I am no match. Not yet. So I must ask again, what brings a prince to the Glades?”
The prince rubbed his wrists, feeling the marks the ropes left him with. “I wish I could tell you an adequate answer, but I can’t. I was half drunk. Even now I might be an eighth drunk. An eighth too much.”
“Then you are seven-eighths too weak.”
Equinox lingered. “Fruit or sprout. This was never about the bartender, was it?”
“Barba?” Kalen shook her head. “No... No, you were just at the wrong place at the wrong time, sadly. And now it seems my clan and I are too.”
“You’ll let me go then?”
“Let you go?” Kalen stroked her chin. “You’re exiled. Does your family still want you even?”
“Oh I know they do.” The prince was confident of that. “I wasn’t exiled. That’s just what they tell people.”
The kap blinked. “Eh?”
“I ran away.” He said it frankly, as if it wasn’t the most damning thing he’s ever done.
The kap took a moment to think. She stroked her chin some more. “True as that might be. It’s not simple,” she said. “There are rules here…” Kalen let out a sharp breath. Somewhere, water dripped. “Rules in the Glades, in the countryside, the slums, the towns —places that are not of your ten cities. Strength rules here, my prince, nothing else. Without strength, you cannot rule.” She grabbed the prince’s bag. The gold coins inside it clanked. “How much do you have?”
“I—” The prince hadn’t given it thought. When he left the capital in a haste, he clasped what he could in his room and stuffed it in his bag. He didn’t have the time to count. The bells had already been rung. “I’m not sure.”
“Spoken like a true boy of riches.” I didn’t want to be rich, the prince wanted to say. It wasn’t my choice. But the kap continued, “A sprouting fruit. A golden apple. The goldest kind. What would my men think of me if I let you go? They will say I have no strength.”
“Then have it. The gold, everything. Just give me back my sword, and I will be on my way.”
Kalen’s hand moved to her blade, touching its handle lightly. “Oh if only I could, but a tree has roots, and what a shame for it to run away without bearing more fruit. At least that is what they will say. I know the truth of it, and they do not, and I’m certain you do not wish for them to know. I know you bring fruits. You also bring the bow and the hammer, and maybe even the king himself if what you say is true.” She unsheathed her blade, showing deep arching ripples in its metal. “How else can we settle this but with a duel?”
***
The sunlight shone much brighter outside compared to the dingy rock grotto they were just in. The waves greeted him. Cool and salty. Course flesh-colored sand covered the shore. Ahead of the waterfall, the two bandits and a few unfamiliar faces stood around a small ankle-level pool. Their eyes were on the prince and the kap.
“Farnow! Horas!” Kalen called for the two bandits.
Farnow looked to be the louder one. He bowed. “Aye, kap.”
“If the apple dies, bury him,” she said with a blank face. The prince doubted he had a blank face. He clutched Dawnstrider with his right hand. At least I have you.
The kap had allowed him to use his sword. “As I’ll use mine,” she had said. “But the stakes are clear. If you lose, through death or submission, I will take three quarters of your gold along with your golden sword. You will be free to leave with a horse of your choosing, though. If you live.”
“If? You’re not confident you’ll kill me?”
Kalen scowled. “I am good, my prince. But I won’t try to kill you. I wouldn’t need to.”
The prince wondered what she meant by that. “And if I win?”
“Then you are free to go.”
The prince scratched the side of his temple. He didn’t want to push his luck. With any other kap, he might’ve had a different fate. A life in ransom, or worse, no life at all. Yet all kaps are compelled by duty and honor, and in a duel, honor lives in equality. Fair stakes, that is honorable. “No. I’ll have your sword… and three quarters of your men.”
Kalen pondered for a moment, then a moment more. She didn’t have to agree to the proposal. There was no sense to. Duty and honor are not law. They are simply what they are. She clutched her silver blade and pushed the flat of Dawnstrider’s scabbard to the prince’s chest. “All right. Deal.”
And so they slashed their hands open, deep enough for blood to seep, and shook on it. A blood pact was sacred.
Now they faced each other on opposite ends of the shallow pool. Behind the prince, the waterfall rushed downwards. It seems the kap had taken words from her men, and some of them were protesting. The prince couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it wasn’t in support.
This is the only way. The kap’s words echoed inside Equinox’s head like a nagging headache. He felt another surge of pain straight down the middle of his skull. That you could be free without my men thinking I am weak. I get a bunch of your gold too, so that’s nice.
“Enough!” the kap commanded. She faced the prince. Their eyes locked. The wind made her colorful sash stream through the air. “To the one god Bathala.”
“To the one god Bathala,” whispered the prince. Equinox has never been in a duel before, not counting the numerous training duels he’s had with Vex, his swordmaster. Those weren’t true duels though. Vex was enlisted not to kill the prince. Regardless, he’d always said the prince was fast. Maybe he can use that.
I am good, my prince. But I won’t try to kill you. I won’t need to. Equinox doubted those words. The kap charged.
He charged too. They rushed to each other, and water splashed around them. The spray from the splashes blurred the prince’s vision, but he could still see the uniquely colored sash of the kap. The sunflower and the eagle inched closer and closer.
Closer, still. The kap kept her blade sheathed, but the white water made it hard for Equinox to distinguish the silver. His right hand gripped Dawnstrider with vigor.
Closer…almost. The eagle’s eyes stared at the prince while it soared through the flower.
A glint of silver showed itself through the chaos. With a swift motion, the prince moved Dawnstrider to block the attack. Steel rang on steel, a sound he hasn’t heard in a while.
Close. The prince held firm. Kalen shifted her stance, sliding through the water and swung her blade straight for Equinox’s neck. The prince was just in time to raise his sword. Clang!
Kalen lifted her blade and hammered onto the prince’s left side. Equinox answered with a block. And again. And again, answered with a block. The blades clinched.
The broadside of Equinox’s sword pressed against his forearm, preventing the bite of Kalen’s silver from slashing his neck. He grunted. “I thought you weren’t going to kill me!”
“I said I wasn’t going to try!” she laughed, lunging away, before moving in just as quickly.
He clutched Dawnstrider and spun, slicing through the air and halting Kalen’s advance. The two duelists observed each other. Each little step. Each movement of a muscle. She has the agility of a feline. And she’s fast. Way faster than the prince. But she is arrogant. She likes to go right. She’s fast, but she likes to go right. Without strength, you cannot rule, the prince thought. She confuses strength with pride.
“I will give you this, my prince. You are persistent.”
“Oh.” Equinox let out a hollow smirk. “You more than I.”
“I don’t doubt that.”
The kap leapt forward with a downward thrust. Prince Equinox took a step to the side, narrowly avoiding the blade. That left the prince with an opening. Equinox fell his blade to Kalen’s exposed backside, but the kap knew. She ducked. Dawnstrider lodged itself on the sand.
Then from the water came an upward thrust. The prince took a step back and tilted his head skyward to avoid the attack.
Equinox knocked Dawnstrider out of the sand and thrusted his sword in rebuttal, making the kap jump backwards, creating space. The prince panted. Kalen smiled. “Tired already?”
“Oh.” He exhaled. “You more than I.”
“I highly doubt that.”
The kap lunged again, and again she went right. She’s fast. Equinox steadied himself. Let’s hope I am fast enough. The prince hacked Dawnstrider at Kalen’s silver as she pierced through the air. That caught her off balance. The force of the prince’s strike caused Kalen’s stance to tilt. Equinox gripped his sword’s hilt tightly and moved in for a decisive strike. The kap managed to dodge, sending water splashing in all directions. Blindly, Equinox slashed forward, finding steel. Clang! The sound of steel on steel, gold and silver, rippled and rang across the shore. The prince found the kap in front of him, gritting her teeth. She was soaked. He was too.
Then Kalen twisted her blade, so swiftly that a spark flew in one breath of a moment. It was all the kap needed. She plunged the butt of her sword to the prince’s stomach, expelling all the air from his lungs. He fell to a knee. “Give up.” She looked down on him with cold, hard eyes.
“Oh,” the prince groaned. “You first before I.”
The kap raised her sword and hit Equinox on the side of the head. The world went black.
***
The prince woke with a throbbing headache. Not again. He was on a horse. He recognized it from the smell. The same horse. His wrists and ankles weren’t tied together, which was a relief. When he opened his eyes, he realized that he’d been slumped on the back of a man he shared a saddle with.
“He’s awake,” a familiar voice spoke. A dusty gray stallion slowed to match the prince’s pace. On it was the kap. “Just in time.”
“Where…?” The prince looked around. They were riding as a party of four, including himself. The kap had one horse, and Farnow, the loud bandit, rode another. He assumed the one riding the horse he was on was the silent bandit, Horas. The man turned to see the prince and grunted, confirming his identity.
Equinox wondered if they knew his identity. He hoped not. His mind raced to the possibility of the kap’s betrayal. What if she decided to ransom the prince after all? What would he do then? His hands went for his waist, noting that his sword belt was no longer there.
“Looking for this?” Kalen held Dawnstrider by its scabbard. “It’ll be safe with me.”
“… I lost?”
The kap stared at him for a moment, then rolled her eyes. “What do you think?” He tried to remember what happened but trying made his head hurt. “Told you I could beat you without killing you.”
They stopped by the side of an inn, the same inn that the prince had unfortunately been doused in half drunkenness. They all dismounted, though the prince hesitantly so. He could die at any moment. They could leave his body in a ditch as an offering to the vultures. I lost, so how am I still alive?
“Here.” The kap threw a small pouch at Equinox. The prince caught it, shaking it as if on instinct. Small coins clanked. “That’s three quarters of your gold, as promised.”
“You’re giving me this much?”
Kalen scoffed. “I’m returning to you that much. I figured the sword’s worth at least half of what you have.” She lifted Dawnstrider with one hand. “Magnificent, this is.” Her other sword remained set on her waist. “But not as great as mine. Maybe I’ll even give it a name—Duskcutter, how’s that? Eh, I’ll give it some thought.”
“Besides, a quarter of your gold is an eighth too much.” She winked. “This will last us at least a moon or two. But I cannot leave you empty handed.” She mounted her horse and drew a small steel dagger from one of the saddle pouches. She handed it to the prince. “Something to remember me by.”
The prince took it. The dagger was of no particular design. It was plain. It had no engravings, no carvings, no sigils even. But it was clean and sharp. Those were what mattered.
“Where will you go now?” asked Kalen.
The prince pressed his lips. “I better start by apologizing.”
“Get to it then.” The kap directed her steed towards the dirt road. Horas and Farnow followed. They shared a horse, leaving the prince with the one that smelled of horse excrement. “I fear we will meet again.” She gripped her horse’s reins. “Next time, be stronger.” And they rode off.
The prince found himself inside the inn with nothing but a smelly horse (that he’d stationed outside), a soggy tunic, soaked trousers, a pair of worn-down boots, a pouch of gold, and a clean dagger.
“Another beggar boy?” The bartender walked up to him, seeing his face. “Wait… you’re no beggar boy.” She slapped him across the cheek. All Equinox could feel was the sting—a sting that turned quickly into a nagging headache.
The prince touched his cheek, feeling it hot and imagining it hopelessly red. “I’m sorry, Barba.” He looked her in the eyes. “Can we start over?”
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