maps of Kigen on the walls. A young woman with sleepy eyes was bent over the rig, at work with a soldering iron. A few others were scattered around the room, falling still as she entered. The biggest of them—a towering lump of muscle with shovel-broad hands—regarded her with an even stare.
“Who’s this?”
“Our friend in the palace,” Gray Wolf said. “Now come and say hello, you rude sod. You’re not so big I can’t take to you with the wooden spoon.”
The man smiled, and favoring his right leg, limped over and offered a bow. He stood a good foot taller than No One. Strong jaw, thick neck, cheeks that hadn’t felt a razor’s touch in weeks. His right shoulder was tattooed with a beautiful phoenix, his left with the Imperial Sun (she’d learned quickly that city operatives didn’t burn off their ink). He had a handsome face framed by tight braids, hard eyes ringed in shadow. A kusarigama hung from his obi, the sickle blade almost hidden by the folds of his grubby trousers.
“No One,” Gray Wolf said. “We call this unshaven lump the Huntsman.”
No One bowed. “Forgive my rudeness, but I have news.”
The Gray Wolf’s matronly smile evaporated. “What is it, child?”
“The Fushicho clanlords have thrown in with Lord Hiro. They will attend his wedding, and almost certainly support him as Shogun. The Ryu are apparently set to roll over and ask to have their bellies scratched too.”
Gray Wolf sighed, shook her head. “So easily. I had hoped…”
“Their oaths bind them to the Kazumitsu,” the big man said. “If the dynasty lives, so does their obligation. But without the wedding, there’s no way in hells the Dragons would bow to someone like Hiro. Their army is huge. And the Phoenix hate bowing to anyone.”
“The Kitsune still have not answered. Perhaps the Foxes will choose—”
“Forgiveness, please,” No One interrupted. “But there is more. The Second Bloom was speaking of a wedding gift for Lord Hiro. An inspection tour in Jukai province.”
The Huntsman raised one eyebrow. “What kind of gift?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they’re building something? A weapon?”
Gray Wolf turned to one of the men by the radio rig. “Sparrow, send word to the Iishi. Ask if the Stormdancer’s Guildsman knows anything about this business.”
“How’s Michi?” the Huntsman asked. “Have you spoken to her?”
“Still under house arrest. All of Aisha’s maidservants are. Lord Hiro has appointed his cousin as Lord Magistrate, a man named Ichizo. He’s questioning the girls personally.”
“At least she’s out of Kigen jail,” the big man sighed. “I told her not to go back there…”
“She said she couldn’t abandon—”
Daken’s thoughts flared in the Kenning, dulled with distance, sharp with urgency. She could feel him prowling rooftops to the north, caught a glimpse of the jagged skyline through his eyes, the sun just beginning to crest the horizon as a cruel stink drifted in off the bay.
“Gods.” No One glanced around the room, palms sweating. “We have to go.”
“What?” Gray Wolf frowned. “What do you—”
“There are bushimen coming. Lots of them. We have to get out of here. Now.”
“I didn’t hear any lookout sig—”
A brief whistle sounded in the streets above, two notes, faint and sharp. The signal was repeated, closer, drifting down the narrow stairwell.
“Dawn raid…” the old woman whispered.
It seemed to No One the next moment stretched for an age. Gray Wolf and the Huntsman exchanging glances. Faces paling ever so slightly, eyes growing wide. Daken’s urgent thoughts pressing on her own—the image of bushimen in blood-red tabards pouring through the alleyways toward the safe house. And all at once, everyone in the basement was moving; snatching up weapons and radio equipment, tearing maps from walls. The Huntsman grabbed No One’s arm, looked her hard in the eye.
“Were you followed?”
“Of course not!”
“Are you certain?”
“My lookout saw them before yours did!”
Gray Wolf was directing the other Kage, the old woman’s voice calm as a millpond, hard as folded steel. “You all know the protocols. Check your drop boxes for word, speak to nobody until you hear from us. Move, move!”
Kage were already scattering up the different stairwells into the neighboring buildings, a few casting baleful glares at No One as they left. The big man was still in her face, anger plain in his eyes. Gray Wolf poked him in the chest to get his attention.
“I said get out. Go! Take No One with you!”
“Are you mad?” the Huntsman growled. “I’m not taking her anywhere.”
“Wait, you think I sold you out?” No One was incredulous.
“This raid is coincidence, then?”
“If I wanted to give away the safe house, I could have just told the bushi’ where you were! I’d have to be an idiot to come here on the day they raided you!”
“Maybe you
A defiant scowl. “Pardon me, Huntsman-sama, but maybe you can kiss my—”
A cry of pain from upstairs, the percussion of running feet. Blades being drawn. Steel on steel. Roared commands to halt in the Daimyo’s name. A flurry of multicolored profanity from Butcher. Gray Wolf slapped the big man on the arm.
“I said get out right now!”
“What about you?”
“I can take care of myself,” the old woman said. “This girl is our only road into the palace. We need her. Make sure she gets away safely, Huntsman.”
The big man cursed, glancing up at the crash of splintering wood, heavy footsteps on the floorboards. Struggling bodies and defiant curses. “All right, come on.”
He grabbed her hand before she could protest, dragged her up the left-hand stairwell and into an abandoned warehouse. Hauling her fast as his limp could take him, through the back door and out into the glare of a rear squeezeway. No One heard breaking glass behind, hoarse screams, a flare of sunburnt light. She felt Daken in her mind, flitting across the rooftops, closing her eye and seeing through his. Bushimen closing in from all directions. Bodies prostrate in the street outside; some lying obediently with their hands on their heads, others bleeding quietly onto broken cobbles. The Huntsman dragged her west along the squeezeway, but she pulled back sharply, shaking her head.
“Not that way.”
“What?”
“There’s too many. Come on.”
The big man paused, reluctant and glacial. But pulling insistently on his wrist, she tugged him back along the thin alley, shrouded in the stink of rat urine. Sleek, furred shapes slunk away at their approach. Empty bottles, human waste, crumpled newssheets. They cut down the crowded brickway, the Huntsman limping hard, No One’s heart slapping the inside of her rib cage as she pulled up her goggles against spears of rusted daylight. Army recruitment posters smeared with white paint; a defiant warning in tall, bold kanji.
ARASHI-NO-ODORIKO COMES.
Out onto a main street, a limping dash across open ground into another alley. Squeezing through the narrow space, knee-deep in refuse, her grip on the Huntsman’s fingers slippery with sweat. Distant shouts. The tune of clashing steel, the thunder of iron-shod boots.
“How do you know where you’re going?” he gasped.
