“Don’t bother getting too worked up.” Eres said as Banda took a fighting crouch. She stood relaxed with her arms crossed, completely unconcerned with the approaching group. Banda glanced at the colors of her clothes and that of the horde, and surmised they were yet more of her humans.

  It didn’t take long for the horde to reach them. Two hundred or so in total, at a glance. Unremarkable compared to the largest tribes in the forest, but it was the most humans Banda had ever seen in the same place.

  In the center, standing out from the crowd, a short portly man sat atop a richly adorned palanquin carried by four humans wearing nothing but long white skirts. Another dressed the same knelt on the dirt the moment they came to a stop and the fat man used him as a stepping stone to walk down from his perch.

  “My Lady Eres, if you would please not take off on your own like that again…” He waddled his way to them, dabbing the sweat on his head with a silk handkerchief.

  Bald and clean shaven, his body more resembled that of a giant toad than a human. The other humans were dressed more simply, many of them armored much like the one who followed this priestess, whose Banda now knew was called Montu.

  But this one that spoke now had colors and patterns more similar to her. His clothing more complicated with red paint beneath his eyes. His body seemed pathetically weak, by the bumbling way he carried himself, but Banda knew well humans could be dangerous otherwise. Perhaps this one was closer to Eres than any of the others.

  “Ah, Oreb.” Eres spoke with mellowed enthusiasm. “I was beginning to think you had gotten lost.”

  Oreb gave an awkward smile of courtesy in response, before his eyes caught the sight of a certain savage watching him closely. “And who is this… man?”

  “My new guarddog.” Eres answered.

  “A feral one, it seems…” The priest spoke with snobbish aversion. “We’d certainly be hard pressed to find a suitable place for him in the temple.”

  A pebble bounced off Oreb’s round gut. It took him a moment of dumbfounded thought before he realized the source of it. The savage who stood still in his crouched posture, entirely without guilt and now entirely disinterested in the new human with such feeble instincts.

  The priest’s face reddened with indignation at the sheer insult of such as act, though he turned to Eres alone. “My Lady, I must insist you train this thing quickly, lest he be made to sleep in the stables with the other beasts!”

  “I will do with him as I see fit. We’ve spent enough time here, let us depart.” Eres ordered, paying no heed to his request.

  Oreb regained most of his calm at her intention to leave, anxious to return as he was. “Then-”

  “No.” Banda said bluntly.

  “You don’t have a choice. You go where I go.” Eres’ brow lowered.

  “I want to tell Monga I’m leaving.”

  “Someone in the forest? We don’t have time...” Eres’ tone was dismissive with a trace of suspicion, but as she looked more into his unyielding eyes, the more she felt his demand was no trap, but a genuine desire. “...Very well.”

  “It is far too dangerous! I’m afraid must put my foot down.” Oreb lost his composure once again, this time on a more concerned view.

  “Then be sure to plant it hard so you remain here until I return.” Eres started to walked off before he could even reply.

  “Ah, but… Then we will at least accompany you as guards!” Oreb called after her with some desperation.

  “You will all die if you follow.” Banda told the fat priest, with a foreboding impartiality.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Oreb balked, for the threat somehow felt more like a warning to him. Confliction swirled in his mind before he reached a compromise. “You, follow the Sacred Priestess. If a single hair of her head is harmed, I will have your families burned!”

  Oreb gestured to the left side of the small army of priests, and they followed after the trio at once. Banda didn’t bother to take note of them. As far as he was concerned, they were only three.

  ---

  Banda moved through the forest at a slower pace than his norm, the fault of the large group behind him unable to keep up. It was the largest group he had ever travelled with outside of the simian tribe, and he could firmly state it was something he did not like.

  The weak humans is red robes and armor were vigilant and wary to a fault, in sharp contrast to the two he actually had to worry about. It was difficult to get a grasp on the dark green cloaked man, even now.

  He was certain the human’s strength was lesser than the purple-eyed woman, but the patches of uncertainty surrounding him bothered Banda. Though even that did not concern him nearly as much as the incomprehensible woman herself, who showed only patient interest in their current trek.

  Banda dashed over without warning to stop her in her tracks as he tossed a broken stick ahead. It bounced off the ground and four giant leaves snapped around it, and writhed into a twist to crush whatever it held inside.

  Banda took a detour around the carnivorous plant and Eres followed after, with nothing more than slight amusement.

  “Have you lived in this forest your whole life, Wild?” She asked.

  “Yes.” Banda answered curtly.

  “Really? How did you survive when you were young?”

  “My power.”

  “You speak quite well for someone raised by monsters.”

  “Monga can speak.” Banda didn’t mind her questions much, but her tone at times annoyed him.

  “Was he the one who named you?” Eres asked with a bit more interest than her other questions.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh?” Eres seemed to glean something from that but he didn’t know what. “Quite an enlightened name to give for a monster.”

  “It is better than My Lady Eres.” Banda liked his name, and he wouldn’t tolerate slights against it. Eres looked at him in silent confusion before something seemed to click and her silence turned to laughter in equal parts amusement and mockery.

  “Everything I learn makes me more interested in your Monga.” Eres wiped a jovial tear from her eye.

  As her laughter trailed off, Banda stepped into a small open patch of grass in the forest before a large flat boulder. The priest guards arrived the moment after, and in the next, hundreds of yeren revealed themselves.

  “Monsters!”

  “Shield the Priestess!”

  The priests flew into action, drawing their weapons and forming a wall around Eres against the imposing apes. Though none were keen on a fight.

  “Your Highness, we must leave!” One of them spoke in panic to Eres, though she did not respond, as if the priests weren’t even there.

  The two sides waited in their tense stand off, but dull methodical tremors broke the silence. Slowly a giant figure emerged from the dense trees, the weight of his steps the source of the sound.

  It was ape-like, though far bulker and broader than the yeren, and covered in scars. Thick white fur covered all but its leathery gray hands, chest and face. Dim blue veins like crystal shards streaked over its leathery hide.

  A bone crown jutted out from its forehead, the horn on its left side pointed tall, while the right was broken in half. Stern silvery eyes peered out with a chilling firmness that mere mortals could not imitate.

  It stepped out onto the stone platform and stared at the humans that entered its territory, none daring to even breath before him. The weight of its presence was immense, but through the suffocating tension Eres’ excitement only rose further, for she recognized the description from stories she had only ever expected to imagine.

  He was the Palm Tree King, one of Eleven Adversaries hunted by Ninurta, and the only one to have escaped him. Cedar Forest held many secrets, but she never once imagined this would be one of them.

  “How much more excitement will you bring me?” She gazed over at Banda, her chosen champion.

  Monga’s eyes turned to Banda. “What reason do you bring so many humans, other than for me to kill?” The priests dug into their stances more, and even Montu shifted in place.

  Though Banda was as composed as ever, not a single sign of tension in his body. He pointed at Eres. “If she dies, I die.”

  “Is that so?” Monga glanced at the priestess.

  Eres lowered her stance, ready for a fight with anxious zeal. She wondered if Banda had some sort plan. Maybe he didn’t understand the Chains of Heaven, after all. Maybe he didn’t truly understand the Adversary before them.

  Monga turned his eyes upon the humans with stoic contempt, tempered with the oils of a thousand years and one.

  “Kill them.”