I cannot keep the shock off my face as Ghostdog looks at me, the satisfied smile gone from his. “You heard that, didn’t you?” I nod without meaning to and he draws his short sword, the black metal whispering as it comes out of the scabbard. “Stay here and stick with the original plan if the Caimos is faster than I am.”

“What are you going to do?”

Ghostdog gives me a sardonic smile. “Apprentice and I are going hunting.” His grey hair becomes almost misty as a gateway forms in front of him, the man turning towards it then running through. It closes behind him.

A moment later he is beside the stone basin stabbing down with his short sword into the water. He is moving inhumanely fast but slows down to normal as he pulls something out of the water, the creature thrashing like a caught fish…and shrieking in the voice of a child. Ghostdog pivots, kneeling as he drives the short sword deep into the ground beside the basin, pinning the creature face down so it can only claw at the dirt and not spit poison. I run towards him as it screams, “Let me go! You have no right to do this.”

Ghostdog is behind it, and as I reach him, I get my first good look at the Caimos. It resembles the dark green swamp-lizards of Indus but is much smaller, being less than three feet long, with a swamp-lizard’s head but no tail, and human looking arms and hands even where its feet should be. Ghostdog lets go of the short sword, which holds the creature fast despite its struggles, and holds out a hand in my direction as he rises to his feet. “Don’t get directly in front of it; the Caimos can still spit poison straight ahead.”

The creature twists its head enough so one eye can see me. “Lady Knight, free me and my mistress will reward you beyond…”

“And don’t listen to what it says,” Ghostdog overriding the creature’s words. “A Caimos will promise to bring you down a star from the heavens, then spit in your eye and feast on your blood the first chance it gets.”

“I know you, Ghostdog,” the Caimos snarls at him. “Chai is my mistress, and she has never forgotten how you ran away from her. She is hunting you, mongrel, and when she discovers you are here she will move like the wind to catch you, and make you her slave for the rest of your life.”

Ghostdog looks amused as he shakes his head. “The wind moves at dawn and Chai rarely stirs before the sun’s well up in the sky. Besides, she has the pick of Imperial City’s noble sons; why would she want an old dog like me? No, you were put here to give the merchants trying to avoid paying the emperor’s tariffs second thoughts about taking this road, and right now you’re hoping to frighten me into letting you live.”

A note of desperation enters the creature’s voice. “Ghostdog, I meant it not. Spare my life and I will help you avoid her snares. You cannot survive without me.”

Ghostdog puts a hand on the hilt of the sheathed katana strapped to his back. “I was doing fine before I met you and I’ll continue to do so once you’re back in the spawning pits.”

I draw my katana as the creature claws at the ground in a frenzied effort to break free. “I will dispatch the Caimos.”

Ghostdog takes his hand off the katana hilt and makes an inviting motion towards the creature. I move into position for a clean strike as the creature’s voice becomes hysterical, “Wait, if the Western Governor’s patrols come across you guarding an illegal caravan, they will hang you as a traitor. Spare me, good knight, and I will speak to my mistress on your behalf to…”

I swing hard, my katana blade slicing through its neck and into the ground, cutting off its head. For a moment I am back in Western Fortress, my father’s head rolling away as his severed neck spurts blood…but then the Daemo creature becomes green smoke, which the earth sucks in like a greedy child drinking sweet-milk, until nothing is left, and I am pulling my katana back as Ghostdog pulls his strange, black metal short sword out of the ground. He pulls a clean piece of cloth from a slit in his trousers as I sheath my sword, forcing my thoughts away from the past and onto practical matters. “Was anything the Daemo creature said true?”