On the Hills of Eden

“Rumi! Wait!”

Rumi felt as Qingxi grabbed her forearm, yanking her back just as she began her sprint towards the library.

Sounds echoed out from all around them, the calls of soldiers and the cries of civilians all blending together in a cyclonic mass of people that surged through the dojo’s concourse.

“But Soleiman!” Rumi said, her face scrunched up as she turned to plead with Qingxi. “He’s still at the library, and it’s over there!”

She pointed in the direction she had been running, the sight of the oncoming men emerging from the Shrine’s main gate and the trickle of Kitsunite soldiers that were funnelling into the battle coming into full focus.

“But-” Qingxi tried, stopping herself midway as Rumi continued to tug against her. She whipped her head around, eyes glancing over the form of the inn where Pallas had retreated to. It was just across the street from the dojo, just about as far from the main gate as the dojo was.

It wasn’t likely that they’d be able to make it back there from the library before the invaders did.

Qingxi kissed her teeth, brows furrowing.

“Alright, then,” she shot back, loosening her grip on Rumi’s arm. “Let’s hurry up and get him!”

They broke from their positions, sprinting their way towards the library. Slipping her way through the rush of civilians heading for safety at the Main Shrine Building, she slid into an alley sandwiched between the shops and houses that lined that street.

Above her, she could just barely hear as Qingxi landed on the ceramic tiles of the houses’ roofs, the cacophony of running and screaming and crying raging from out beyond the walls of the alleyway somehow still managing to drown out her hearing.

Her boots tapped against soft dirt and stone, her body dodging and angling to best her keep momentum up even as dangling fabrics, rogue clotheslines and all sorts of rubbish stood in her way.

She didn’t fear that she had made the wrong decision. She didn’t fear the fact that she was running headfirst towards the thick of the action, towards who-knows-what kind of enemies were now spilling into the Shrine’s interior.

She only feared the fact that her time with Soleiman may have been cut short.

Qingxi kept pace with Rumi below her, leaping from rooftop to rooftop and keeping as low as she could to keep herself out of the eyes of the enemy. Up there, the wind blew freely in her gi– but the distant panic of the population and the sinking anxiety within her heart reminded her it was no time to let her guard down.

She slid her way onto yet another ceramic roof, feeling as the tiles bumped against her through her thick fabrics. She shot back up to her feet, breaking into another sprint- when the roof she stood on shuddered.

She spun on her heels, her right hand ready to draw the hunting knife from her hip and her left to pull the axe attached to her back.

But it was a Kitsunite, his hands far from prepared to pull his sword from its sheath.

He said something in Japonic, the words flying over her head as he desperately called for Qingxi to go back the way she came.

She raised her hands up in surrender, though still slowly backing away and shaking her head as she did so.

“Qingxi?” Rumi called out from below.

“Yeah, I’m fine!” She responded. “Just keep running!”

Step, step, splash.

Rumi blipped through light and shadow, passing through the little glimpses of skylight that fought their way down the moist alley floor. The voices of the Kitsunites faded into and out of her hearing, growing increasingly desperate and frightful the closer she got to the main gate– closer to where Soleiman was.

She looked up for a moment, checking to see if Qingxi was still-

She slammed head first into something soft, yet hard, sending her reeling backwards and onto her backside as her head struggled to recover from the force of the impact.

She put a hand to her forehead, creaking her eyelids open as she forced herself back to her feet.

Seeing that she had ran head first…

…into Soleiman.

“Soleiman?” She asked, eyebrows rising as far as they could even as her head continued to throb with pain.

“R…Rumi?”

She rushed forward, grabbing his hand and hoisting him back up to his feet; the palm of her left still attached to her head.

“What are you doing here?” He asked her, the confusion and worry writ on his face overpowering any terror that was previously evident.

“To save you!” She replied, already beginning to step backwards as she tugged him along.

“Alone?”

“With Qingxi-”

There was a sudden deluge of noise that poured out from overhead, the two of them instinctively crouching down by a cart full of old fabrics in response.

“Where is she-”

A shadow suddenly fell upon the small ray of light that shone down upon them, disappearing almost as quickly as it had appeared. Their heads shot up in turn, seeing as Qingxi had fallen from the rooftops, tumbling against the walls of the buildings.

Just one metre from hitting the ground, she managed to garner a gust of wind swiftly enough to right herself, planting her feet onto the ground before either the rest of her body or the giant, gold-laced arrow buried in her right collarbone did.

“Qingxi!” Rumi exclaimed, dropping any pretence of stealth to rush out to her aid. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“It’s fine, leave it,” she responded, slowly rising from her knees. “I’ll just have to avoid using this arm for the meantime.”

“Did you see who shot you?” Soleiman asked, unsure of what to do with his hands as Qingxi got to her feet.

“A lot of archers,” she responded. “Too many to fight. They’re moving along on the rooftops by the main street, Gravitas sailors rushing ahead of them.”

“Sh- what?”

He damn near yelled that ‘what’, carefully supporting Qingxi with Rumi as they began making their way back to the dojo and then the inn.

“Gravitas sailors,” Qingxi said again. “Most of the incoming mob are concentrated near the gate, but those sailors and some Hashashiyyin breakaways are advancing deeper on their own.”

“Shit,” he gasped. “Then they must know Pallas is here too, no?”

“That’s what I thought,” she responded. “But would they know she’s at the inn?”

“I…” Soleiman struggled. “We can’t risk it-”

Qingxi’s ears twitched.

She suddenly spun on the spot, fighting herself free of Soleiman and Rumi as he whipped her left hand out in front of her.

An arrow singing through the air between the buildings was suddenly deflected off course, thrown back up to roof level.

“Hurry, we have to-”

It suddenly looped back on itself, bending impossibly as it twirled and coiled through the air, surging back down towards Qingxi.

Her left hand dropped back to her hip, fingers wrapping about the handle of her small hunting knife as the arrow buried itself into her liver, forcing her back down to her knees.

“Qingxi!” Rumi yelped.

“Shit!” Soleiman yelled. His jittery eyes landed upon the form of a door in one of the buildings, and instantly he drove his boot into it.

Though it did not budge.

Once, twice. The wood was firm, unmoving.

“Move, Soleiman!” Qingxi struggled.

He slipped out of the way, an axe burying itself into the door’s wood moments later. He rushed forward again, he, Rumi and Qingxi all working together to dig the axe deeper into the door so that they could force it open.

The stubborn thing finally caved, and Soleiman ushered the two of them in.

“How did it do that?” Rumi asked, helping Qingxi deeper indoors.

They’d appeared to have broken into a cafe, and they were now hidden behind a counter that overlooked the main dining area; outfitted with several circular tables and overturned chairs– half-eaten ceramic plates of food, steaming cups of tea and the still burning oven fire hidden into the counter evidence enough of the cacophony of panic the occupants had left the place in.

“Maybe it’s an Instrument of War?” Soleiman asked, trying his best to close the half-broken door in some attempt at concealing them from any pursuers.

Qingxi’s ears twitched again.

"How do they-"

Qingxi suddenly sprung into action, cutting Rumi off as she grabbed a plate stowed beneath the counter.

An arrow speared its way through one of the paper windows on the opposite side of the cafe on the building’s facade.

At once, Qingxi swung the plate down in front of her, catching the arrow as it screeched towards her and shattering both its head and the plate on impact.

“How do they have an Instrument?” Rumi asked, helping Qingxi to the ground as Soleiman rushed to hide alongside them by the counter.

“I-”

Soleiman’s response was cut off, a distant chanting suddenly coming into earshot– from beyond the back wall.

Qingxi kissed her teeth, rising back to her feet as she signalled the two of them to vault the counter. She grabbed the axe from Soleiman, dual wielding it and the hunting knife as she herself slid over the counter in anticipation of the pursuers.

Spear the Fox. Spear the Fox.

There was a sudden whirring noise, like that of a thousand small winds spinning about a point at incomprehensible speeds.

“Get behind me-”

Her ears twitched again, and just as she turned to face the door was smashed down once more.

The arrow sunk deep into her side, forcing her back to the floor as she grimaced in resistance. Brows furrowed, her eyes rose to meet the falling debris of the splintered door, the Saracenic man standing where it once was holding a whirring spear in his hands.

“You-” The man cut himself off, fingers adjusting themselves about the long shaft of his spear. “You’re no Kitsunite.”

“It’s a Chitite!” They could hear the small group of men tailing him murmur.

“What do you want?” Qingxi asked, hoisting herself back to her feet, using the counter as a support.

The man’s face suddenly sunk, shadows falling from his furrowed brow.

“Justice.”

“Wait, he’s a Saracen too!”

A younger boy from the gathering behind him had snuck a glimpse through the broken doorway, still fighting for his rights to observe the oncoming battle even as he made his proclamation.

Soleiman raised his hands in surrender, eyes darting forth between the back of Qingxi’s head and the man stood in the doorway.

“No,” the man said, flicking his spear slightly to keep its blade’s whirring going. “He’s a traitor.”

“Wait, but what if they took him captive?” The boy insisted, reaching an arm through to put his hand on the man’s shoulder.

“Could you shut up-”

An empty mug shot through the air from across the room, shattering against the back of the man’s head the very moment he turned around to yell at the boy.

Qingxi’s eyes darted momentarily, seeing as Rumi prepared herself to make a second throw.

At once, she vaulted the counter, bringing her axe down with as much ferocity as she could upon the man’s head; every inch of the action sending sparks of pain tearing through her body from the three arrows embedded within her.

The axe met the wood of the floor, jolting the spectators away from the doorframe.

Qingxi’s eyes shot back up, the flickering glint of the rotating blade surging directly towards her bandaged face.

It whirred through the air, stopping short of hitting anything as a gust of wind suddenly roared into being– throwing Qingxi and her axe backwards, all the way to where the counter stopped and allowed the two distinct areas of the cafe to merge.

She grit her teeth as the wooden shafts bit and twisted through her body with every bit of struggle she put into keeping herself on her knees.

A second mug came soaring through the air, this time shattering against the wall as the man ducked to avoid it.

Soleiman watched on in incredulity as the man’s venomous glare flickered over to Rumi, eyes boring into her very being.

When he saw Qingxi’s ears twitch.

His eyes jittered across the perimeter of the room, spotting at the very edge of his periphery the form of an arrow shooting through yet another paper window.

His hand reached for a chair, but the arrow was already halfway across the room.

At once, he leapt forward, the arrow stinging its way into his right shoulder blade and bringing him onto the floor in pain just by where Qingxi was.

Qingxi’s eyes widened momentarily as she saw Soleiman take the arrow for her. But they immediately shot back into action, the man suddenly surging to where she was.

She blasted herself to the side, knocking Soleiman over in the process as they crossed the threshold into the main dining area.

Rumi came sprinting in from across the room, chair slung over her shoulder with her right hand. She stopped just by the counter, swinging the chair over her head and down upon the man, using every bit of momentum she had built up in her sprint to smash it upon his bald skull.

The man turned, spacing his grip apart as he blocked the chair with the shaft of his spear. Forcing it and Rumi backwards by slicing his spear out towards her, he began readying himself for a counterattack.

Rumi held the chair before her, its wooden form suddenly exploding into a cloud of dust and splinters and fragments as the Instrument sunk into it.

Qingxi’s ears twitched again.

Soleiman grabbed Qingxi with his left hand, the pain screaming through his right shoulder blade too piercing to ignore. The arrow shot through yet another paper window, this time finding home in the wall just beside them as he yanked Qingxi back to avoid it.

The man hopped over the counter, walking Rumi down as she kept their gazes locked– using her hands to feel her way backwards.

Soleiman grabbed Qingxi’s axe, quietly rising to his feet as the man continued to bear down on Rumi.

“You chose the wrong side, Solean.”

The spear whirred into action, and in turn Rumi too raised her hands to her cheekbones, imitating Pallas’ stance specialised for hand-to-hand combat.

The man pulled his spear back, preparing to thrust it straight through her heart when Soleiman suddenly sprung into his periphery, Qingxi’s axe held high above his head with his left arm before he brought it down…

“Sir!”

…upon thin air.

He felt the flesh and bone of his right collar suddenly shatter and splinter in full, blood and skin and muscle filling the air as the drill-bit of the spear buried itself into him.

He felt his vision waver, the grim snarl of the man remaining at the focal point of his darkening sight even as he struggled to stand upright.

The man’s face suddenly distorted as the legs of a chair struck him thrice over, bludgeoning his nose, busting his lips and shattering his teeth as Rumi rushed in from where she was to force him off of Soleiman.

The man let loose one of his hands from the spear’s shaft, using it to swat away Rumi’s chair and throwing it to the side.

He tore the spear from Soleiman’s shoulder, letting him fall to his knees as Qingxi crawled up behind him.

“You little bitch,” he spat, both hands now firmly back onto the spear as he made his advance.

Matcha, water, plate. Rumi thought to herself, squaring up once more.

The man thrust forth his spear, Rumi slipping the attack by pressing herself up against a table. He thrust again, lunging forward this time, Rumi dodging by hopping backwards and to the side, her back bumping up against a few chairs in the process.

Her hands scanned over the table behind her, eyes still glued onto the march of the ever advancing man.

His fingers whitened, his lips pursed and his jaw clenched.

At once, he raised the spear above his head, bringing it down upon her in a brutal, mindless action fuelled entirely by the blazing fires of rage that roared within him at the stubborn evasion of the insolent girl.

She leapt up onto the table, lifting her feet up before her as she tumbled over the top of it, the drill-bit smashing into its wood just as she rolled off of it and onto the floor again.

Matcha.

Just as the man began to pull his spear from the mess of wood and cloth and broken ceramic, Rumi grabbed a pot of matcha powder from one of the tables by her, casting its content forward in a stream of dust that slammed into his face.

“Gah!”

Water.

He raised his hands involuntarily to his face, eyes struggling to fight back open as he stumbled back slightly. The moment he could force his eyelids open and bring his reddened eyeballs to face the girl before him, though, a splash of searing hot water fresh from a kettle splattered all over his face.

"Gragh!"

Pl-

The man suddenly lurched at her, barbarically throwing forth his spear– his movements devoid of any rhyme or reason as he thrusted towards her again and again.

Thrown off by the sudden, wild swings, Rumi threw herself backwards, evading every hit at the cost of having been thrown from her plan of attack.

She reached for the ceramic plate, but with the man now no longer stunned by the pot of matcha and the steaming hot water, she would be unable to use it to split his forehead open.

“Sir!”

The gathering of people had reassembled by the doorway, and seeing as their man was starting to struggle even with Rumi, they began pouring into the cafe.

“Qingxi,” Soleiman whispered, the hole in his shoulder now coated in a strange, dark crimson, tar-like substance. “Blow flour into the fire.”

She nodded.

Rumi continued backing away, her mind racing and her eyes darting across the cafe in search of any way out of the mindless barrage of attacks the man was throwing at her.

When suddenly, the countertop burst into flames.

The gathering of people cried out in synchrony, backing their way back out of the building.

Ears filled with yet still ignorant of the blaze behind him, the man finally managed to clear his eyes of the dust and water, violently stripping the skin of his face against the fabrics of his shoulder. Now red, bloodshot and filled with a primal fury, they landed upon Rumi.

He surged forward, thrusting his spear directly towards her.

Only to fall onto his knee.

Soleiman emerged from behind him, hurriedly shoving away a bunch of chairs to get away after having slashed open the back of one of the man’s kneecaps with Qingxi’s axe.

This was her chance.

Plate.

She dashed the ceramic disc before her, pinging it directly into his eyeball and forcing him to drop his weapon in pain– blinding him as he raised his hands in instinctual defence.

Then, before he could recover, Soleiman leapt back in, using the axe once more to cleave open his throat.

Bringing him to the ground. For good.

Hurrying along, Soleiman grabbed the spear off of the ground, spinning on his heels to face the mob slowly gathering once again by the doorway.

“Stop, please,” he begged, his right arm almost entirely functional, not a single drop of blood spilling from the now fully sealed hole on his shoulder. “We don’t want to fight you.”

There seemed to be a murmur amongst the men, but there was no real resistance to the proposition. Without a leader and without an Instrument, the four or five youngsters eventually backed away.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Rumi sighed, rushing over to tend to Qingxi. “We almost-”

Her ears twitched.

“Rumi!”

Hearing his cry, Rumi yanked back on Qingxi, pulling her away much to her chagrin as another arrow flew in through the windows and sunk into the wooden floor.

“What the hell are we going to do about these arrows?” Rumi yelled, eyes flickering between Qingxi as she groaned and the windows on all sides of the building.

Soleiman paused for a moment.

He hurried forward, eyes locked onto the first arrow that had buried itself into Qingxi’s shoulder.

And, unlike the others– which were plainly made of wood– it was decorated with gold.

“Qingxi,” he gasped, still trying to catch his breath. “The first arrow. Did it hit you straight-on or was it curved, too?”

“Straight,” she responded, her breaths shallow as each one sent waves of pain through her body. “From a volley.”

“Shit, okay,” he said. “Then I should-”

Her ears twitched again.

Without notice, he grabbed the golden arrow, yanking it from Qingxi’s shoulder as she screamed in agony.

He tossed it aside, watching as- not moments later- another arrow shot through the windows to bury into it.

“Oh!” Rumi said.

Qingxi groaned, mouthing a Sinitic expletive as she put a hand to her now open wound.

“Thank you, Soleiman.”

“Mmm,” he hummed, feeling almost as the divine blood that had sealed his wound began tugging on him. “Alright, come on, we need to get back to Pallas!”