The Ajan Warrior of the Night
“Well now we know why Miss Shannon had that big silly grin on her face a couple days ago. She’s got herself a brand new warrior page!”
“Ooh, it’s got everything! Let’s see, there’s Kishi and her ring, and her cape and arrows and it’s even got three different kinds of earrings!”
“It is a pretty nice page, huh?”
“Okay ladies, me and hunter girl over here have got our warrior stuff together. Let’s get with it! Where’s your new pages?! We’ve got four to go!”
“Oh my goodness”
“Heheee.. Ooh, if you wanna read one of the stories from Shannon-sama’s book when she’s the Huntress and fights monsters with her magical cat named Kishi, you should go see the Call of the Huntress page, ’cause we gots lots of neat stories! Have fun minna!”
LadyStar™ Call of the Huntress is Copyright © 2007 Heavy Cat Multimedia Ltd. All Rights Reserved
Shannon looked around. Some of the plants had grown rather close to the water on the opposite side of the narrow brook. One of the plants looked odd and Shannon couldn’t quite figure out why. She continued looking at it, trying to sort the leaves from the branches. It was a very dense plant, and the leaves were larger than most of the other plants, so it was hard to tell which leaf was which.
What she noticed, however, was the long light brown strings that seemed to run around and around the branches. It looked almost as if they were hanging there. Then Shannon realized they were. She stood up and stepped over the shallow water to get a closer look. Strung through the outer edge of the shrub’s branches were two long light brown cords that looked very much like they were made of the same kind of leather as her scabbard. Shannon picked them up. The two pieces were about the width of a shoelace, but at least twice as thick.
I wonder where these could have come from? Shannon thought. She looked back and forth, wondering if someone had perhaps dropped them or they snagged the plant as they passed. Then Shannon started scouting along the ground around the banks of the nearby brook, thinking perhaps whomever had lost these cords had perhaps dropped other items. After a few moments, however, Shannon had found nothing, so she carried them back to where she had been sitting.
As she sat examining the two laces, she glanced at the scabbard she had set down by the edge of the water. She picked it up and took a closer look at it. Sure enough, the scabbard and laces seemed to be made of almost exactly the same material. I knew it, Shannon thought. Maybe the scabbard and laces went together somehow?
Shannon examined the scabbard closely. There were twin sets of two notches cut into one side of the flat leather, but they were far too small to thread the laces through. Shannon exhaled impatiently and dropped her hands to her lap, still holding the laces and scabbard. What are these for? Why don’t they go together?
“You are going to be in such trouble when the farmer finds out you raided his apples,” a voice said from behind Shannon. She quickly turned to look. A boy about her age was leaning against one of the ash trees near the brook, staring off in another direction. He was dressed in ragged canvas pants and a dingy-looking light-colored long-sleeve shirt. He was tossing a small dark-colored coin of some kind with one hand. He turned his head to look at her and raised an eyebrow.
“Shouldn’t you be about your chores, princess?” he said with a smirk.
Shannon sat agape. At least a dozen different emotions collided in her mind, shouting for attention. The majority were various degrees of annoyance, anger, frustration, embarassment and apprehension. About all Shannon could manage was one sputtering response.
“I’m not a princess!”
“Whatever you say,” the boy replied, turning back to staring into the forest. His shock of brown hair was combed only in the most liberal sense of the word. Not that it seemed to concern him in the slightest.
“I could put in a good word for you with the farmer, but I’ll have to ask for a favor, you know,” he said.
“Why you..” Shannon got to her feet and clenched her fists. The boy turned and put his hands out to try and calm Shannon down.
“Hey, hey, don’t mean no harm, princess. I’m just on the lookout for a few coins so I can buy my breakfast all honest-like. Don’t want the merchants to think I’m a shady type.”
“Do I look like I have any coins? Why would I be picking apples if I had coins to buy them with you stupid, raggedy-looking doofus! And if I did have any coins the last person I’d give them to would be you. And stop calling me princess. I’m a high school student and I’m a squad leader in band!” Shannon almost shouted.
“And you’ve got a bit of a temper, haven’t you?” the boy winked. Shannon frowned, mouth open. She was rapidly becoming too angry for speech. She clenched her eyes shut.
“Ooooh!” she exclaimed in a frustrated tone, then whirled around and plopped back down on her spot by the brook.
The boy observed Shannon sitting with her back turned for a few moments, then put his hands in his pockets and sauntered over near where she was sitting.
“Where’d ya get that knife?” he asked.
“I found it,” Shannon snapped, then folded her arms with emphasis.
“Bet it’d sell for a tidy sum,” he persisted.
“It’s not for sale,” Shannon replied. “It’s mine.”
“Well, you said you found it. Could belong to someone else,” the boy said, rocking back and forth on his heels and looking out over the water.
“They don’t want to sell it either,” Shannon said. The boy chuckled.
“How do you know they don’t want to sell it?” he asked with an amused tone.
“Because I just do,” Shannon frowned stubbornly.
“Do you always get what you want?” the boy asked.
“Yes,” Shannon said with a note of finality.
“And you say you’re not a princess,” the boy teased. Shannon looked up with an astonished expression. The boy’s blue eyes made him look curious about her more than anything else.
“Ran away from home myself last harvest.” He smiled and nodded his head in an upstream direction. “There’s an abandoned barn on the opposite side of that stand of maple if the night breeze gets too cold for you. Watch out for the farmer though. He’s a mean one.”
The boy picked his way down the bank towards a large rock in the stream, then expertly hopped across to the opposite bank. Moments later he disappeared into the trees again.
Shannon sat with an expression of total incredulity on her face. Just who did he think he was?
“Hey everyone. We’ve had quite a few updates for the third book in our series, Call of the Huntress, so I thought it would be a good idea to make a list of what we’ve previewed so far.”
“That’s a great idea Shannon-sama!”
“Thanks, Hoshi! Okay, our first preview was By the Light of the Stars which is the story of the Warrior of the Night battling reptile-like monsters called Carcs.”
“Yucky. I don’t like monsters.”
“The second update was a four-part series called the Plot Against the Vicereine, about a noble in Aventar who gets attacked by evil assassins. Here’s Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and Part Four.”
“The Vicereine seems like she’s real strong. I hope we don’t have to fight her.”
“Yeah, but she gave that little boy a silver coin even though the price of the flower was a lot less. I think that was really nice.”
“Yeah! That was nice, huh? I wonder what a cruss ring is though.”
“So how come you decided to do a preview roundup today?”
“Guess.”
“Ooh! You’re gonna have another preview?! Realeeeee?”
“Check back later today everyone! A brand new exclusive preview from Book Three of our series Call of the Huntress, right here. See ya then!”
“Don’t miss the new preview! Ja minna!”
