'In those days there were three kingdoms separated by shadow: the Heavens, ruled by the Celestials, the Underworld, where the races of the Daemo dwelt, and the ancient battleground between the two, the Middle Kingdom, where man and other mortal races lived in fear of those above as well as below. The Shadowlands served as both bridge and barrier between the three kingdoms, for shadow creatures existed there that existed nowhere else, ever hungry for the taste of flesh they could not consume, ever lusting after the life they were forever denied…'

GHOSTDOG

Seven ghosts in the form of ravens keep watch with me as the day slowly dies. They are perched on the tree branches above me as I crouch upon a rock jutting out from the ground like a giant’s fist, looking down the mountain slope through the trees at the flagstone road below. 

I suppose I’m not much more than a ghost myself, sinew and bone and flesh like old leather, the Artifact plates riveted to my torso armor cracked and broken, while my clothes are so stained I can’t remember what color they used to be. But I have good swords; a katana named Master, strapped to my back, and a short-sword named Apprentice at my side, both sheathed, and both keeping watch with me as I look down from the rock.

Leaves from the branches have fallen upon the ground like dead soldiers on the killing fields of our endless wars, the trees silent sentinels mourning their loss as the biting wind keens, then fades away, leaving the forest hushed in watchful waiting. The road isn’t much to look at anymore, its flagstones cracked with weeds growing up between the stones, but those who wish to avoid the official highways with their tariff collectors, soldiers, and officers of the Ministry of Secrets, still find it useful.

I hear the caravan before I see it, the sounds echoing so it seems I’m crouched beside the road and not far above it: the clop-clop-clop of horse hoofs, a man’s curse as another one laughs, the creak of a wagon shifting on the uneven stone. Then the outrider comes around the bend with the first of the caravan’s wagons close behind, and as I see both the face and the white belt, I realize the outrider is a female knight.

I’ve heard that in the days before the Daemo arrived, women warriors were rare. But these days the empire’s endless warfare has forced a few of a family’s eldest sisters to take on the role of a man, since in the empire only a male can be the head of a family or a clan. They must act in a man’s role: leading their family’s warriors into battle, governing the family’s affairs, and never knowing the embrace of another male, which by imperial decree is punishable by death. They are allowed the pleasures of women, but some feel as strongly towards males as I towards females and thus choose to remain celibate… though many have a 'favorite' squire they keep close to their side, or so I have heard.

The knight is slender with her black hair in a warrior’s braid like mine, and we share the same style of armor: wax-hardened leather with square plates of Artifact, which are thick leather squares transmuted by magic into a substance hard as steel, but still light as the leather it’s made from. The barbarian people in the lands west of the great mountains have their own kind of magic, different than ours, and the art of transmuting leather and wood into Artifact is one of them.

Unlike my armor, she has layers of shoulder protectors, and plates wrapped around each upper arm each thigh down to the knee. Her katana is sheathed at her side and attached to her white belt, while her small family flag flutters behind her, fastened to a flexible pole built into her armor: a rock rose, thorns and all. Seeing the haughty expression on her face I’m sure the thorns of the rose are sharp.

She rides past and the wagons rumble on behind her. The caravan master must be a wine merchant, for the wooden wagons are carrying large casks with the image of grapes burned into the red oak. The drivers are grizzled old men and a few women, each wearing rawhide armor with their weapons, no doubt, hidden under the wooden benches they sit upon as they carefully watch the flagstones on the road. Each wagon is drawn by a pair of horse-oxen, placid beasts intelligent enough to understand the verbal commands of their drivers and clearly well cared for, judging by the brawniness of their flesh.

The caravan is a tempting prize for bandits, yet no one seems worried, perhaps because a dozen or so of the lady’s retainers are mixed in with the regular guards walking alongside the caravan, their armor the same wax-hardened leather but with steel rings attached, the family flag attached like hers. Two of the guards are her red-belted squires wearing the same armor but with steel plates instead of rings, and chainmail covering vulnerable spots, one burly with a black, bushy beard while the other is slender and shaven clean, his face a reflection of the knight’s… a cousin, perhaps? I don’t know.

But all of them are lax, sharing a jest, thinking of the abandoned way-station less than a league away, or the whore they knew in the last town they visited, the skin of wine stashed with their gear… Anything but an ambush.

On the slope above the road, the bandits are thinking of nothing else as they watch the caravan approach.