7.

  Everything seemed quiet in the most isolated lot of Hope Village, a cluster of ruins hidden beneath tall, sharp grass that had taken over after the Guards of the former warlord demolished the shacks that once stood there.

  No-Belt and his half-platoon of ragged conscripts descended the Hill of Saints, where countless decapitated clay statues kept watch along the path, and reached the spot where a straw hat had reportedly been sighted.

  They found him alone, in a makeshift camp. He was jotting notes in a notebook with a mason’s pencil while waiting for a traíra fish, wrapped in banana leaves, to cook over a fire suspended in the middle of the deserted street. A cast-iron pot near the coals was boiling a portion of yellow rice.

  They exchanged few and terse words, and then an unexpected bloodbath spilled over the uneven cobblestones, pooling in thick, dark mud that reeked of hot rust.

  The events happened in rapid succession:

  The outsider blew a signal on a whistle, and immediately a dozen mounted samurai surged forth from a mass of brush and rubble at the back of the lot, shouting obscenities and raising spears toward No-Belt’s group.

  At that exact moment, a thick carpet of tall grass stirred with a rushing wind, and at the cry of a command—“Hai!”—dozens of arrows erupted from the green blades, arcing toward both the bandit cavalry and everyone in the makeshift camp without distinction.

  They were screwed.

  In a flash, No-Belt struck the straw hat’s jaw with the hilt of his sword and threw himself into the blade-grass, searching for the remains of a wall to hide behind.

  Curled among bricks exploding under gunfire left and right, he saw nothing that followed. The rest of his group had no such reflex and were all dead by the second volley of arrows.

  No-Belt did, however, recognize the voices shouting commands before each arrow storm—they were women he knew. That was when he finally understood his role in the operation.

  Bait.

  He used the final chaos of the ambush to flee into the forest, following the whispers of the creek through the noise of woodland spirits.

  8.

  No-Belt had never heard of tracking dogs in Hope Village, but, considering the vastness of what he didn’t know, he chose to keep fleeing along the creek’s edge. It didn’t seem like the archers or bandits were chasing him.

  The young samurai couldn’t help but admire the ingenuity of the widows’ plan, which in a single maneuver rid them of the roaming bandits and reduced the refugee population in their village. Still, as one of the targeted population, No-Belt was determined to survive—and for that, he needed a plan.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  The first step was to find a way out of the eucalyptus labyrinth he had plunged into, and then figure out how to return to the village completely unnoticed before vanishing for good.

  He could leave immediately, but he refused to abandon Honda. Besides, he still held onto the hope of seeing Naomi again, confronting the truth, and confirming that she had nothing to do with the conspiracies of her community.

  He could then rescue her from a life of lies, and they would flee together to the next province: the end, everything perfect, in eternal harmony under the sky.

  He was drenched in sweat beneath his armor. The helmet wouldn’t stay in place, slipping over his eyes with each unsure step on the treacherous ground, disturbing his focus.

  So he couldn’t retrace the path that led him to the clearing behind the trees, where a wooden shack with cardboard-colored doors sat surrounded by blooming white rhododendrons.

  A woman sat on a small stool by the door, gazing at the flowered fields, sucking on a pipe. “A widow!” thought No-Belt, but he had no choice but to approach. He was lost. He braced himself to fight for his life.

  But she turned out to be a person of completely gentle manners, kind speech, and soft eyes; and so No-Belt, finding no echo for violence in her spirit, lowered his guard.

  “I can’t say I agree, but I don’t disagree with what we do, either. The matter was discussed in assembly and approved by the majority,” explained the lady after offering No-Belt several cups of tea.

  “I produce the Hope Sickness here. The honey from the bees that feed on these flowers is highly hallucinogenic, and it’s what we use to sweeten the tea we serve the boys. It makes them gentler, in the long run,” she confessed, candidly.

  “In your case, it seems to have had the opposite effect—made you sharper! Isn’t that a good thing?”

  9.

  As soon as the tea hit hard, No-Belt took off running. Was he dying? He suspected it, but didn’t know. He had heart palpitations, lost his balance, was hearing things, seeing shapes—but he managed to grab hold of a memory: he once heard from a retired general that the roaming bandits often camp in the Grand Temples.

  Perhaps he could meet Bear-Hand there and forge an alliance against a common enemy. During his stay in Hope Village, No-Belt had surely learned all the information that the straw hat—struck down in the Marsh of Tears—had spent the last few weeks gathering; that is, the strategic survey for an invasion and looting of the village.

  He would only need to ensure, in his deal with the bandits, that no harm would come to Naomi—that would be the delicate part. Could one trust wild Guards who roamed the wilderness and lived by banditry?

  No-Belt’s legs moved on their own, inventing the path, for he now saw clearly whatever he imagined, conversed with the wind, and laughed at jokes he hadn’t yet heard. And so he stumbled to the forest’s edge, reaching the hills of tall grass that opened into valleys of broken asphalt—surely by pure luck, he was on the right path.

  There were various Shrines in the villages, each with its own preachers and cults—to the God of War or the God of Peace, to the God of Prosperity or the God of Law, among others; but there were also the Grand Temples, reserved for the most important holidays and festivals of all cults. Because they served as spaces of interfaith unity, they were empty most of the time.

  Hope Village’s Grand Temple was a large stone structure from the old country, with many floors and rows of stained glass that still gleamed on the facade, now overtaken by weeds and vines that not even an army of monk-gardeners could tame.

  The ruin housed a newer structure within its rotting walls: a church nave and altar, built by the grandparents of Hope Village using eucalyptus wood and a clever joinery technique that required no nails. The wide hall was lined with cushions for the people to rest, and it was here No-Belt hoped to find resting bandits.

  Instead, he found only Naomi—whom he now discovered was the Bishop responsible for this Grand Temple—bowed in prostration before the sacred images at the altar.