Kinslayer

“Trust me.”

On they ran, or ran as best they could with the big man’s limp. His face was twisted, sweat-slick. One hand wrapped in hers, the other pressed to his right thigh, blood seeping through his pants leg. Two blocks later, No One was beginning to think they were in the clear when she heard Daken whisper a warning from above. Moments later, shouts echoed up the street, heavy tread ringing on the cobbles, citizens around them scattering. Two bushimen were charging, naginata spears outthrust, roaring “Halt in the Daimyo’s name!”

The Huntsman cursed, shoulders slumping, pulling his hand from her grip.

“This bastard leg…” he sighed. Unslinging the kusarigama from his waist, he hefted the sickle-shaped blade in one massive fist and nodded to her. “Go on, girl. Best keep running. If you’re the one who sold us out, I pray that Enma-o feeds you to the hungry dead when you die.”

The big man turned to face the charging soldiers, letting his kusarigama’s chain slip through his fingers, swinging it around his head. With luck he’d take down one soldier before the second skewered him—but there was no chance he’d be walking away alive. No One blinked away the sweat, saw the inevitable outcome in her mind’s eye. The Huntsman sinking to the floor, chest punctured, ribs broken. Running back to her little hovel and little life, cut off from the Kage as events spiraled out of control …

She squinted at the oncoming soldiers, realized they were raw recruits only a few years older than she. Scarlet tabards over banded breastplates, embroidered tigers, new kerchiefs. Young men, probably brought up on these same narrow streets, drafted into the military with the promise of regular meals and a place to belong.

The Huntsman threw his kusarigama, the weapon wrapping itself around an oncoming spear. The big man jerked the chain, pulling the wielder off balance and into an elbow that landed like falling concrete, snapping the boy’s jaw loose. Swinging the sickle blade, the Huntsman buried it in the bushiman’s neck, sent the soldier spinning away in a spray of red. His comrade roared, furious, thrusting his blade straight toward the big man’s heart.

No One raised a fistful of iron.

The shot was impossibly loud, recoil kicking up her forearm, knocking a frightened cry from her lips. The bushiman clutched his neck, a sticky red flower blooming in his fingers as he spun on the spot, gasping, scarlet gushing as he collapsed on the road in ruins.

The Huntsman was staring at her dumbfounded, a thin wisp of smoke rising from the iron-thrower’s barrel into the breathless space between them.

“If the Great Judge sends the hungry dead anywhere near me,” she gasped, “I’ll kick his privates so hard his throat will have three lumps.”

“Where the hells did you get that?”

… more coming go go …

“Later,” she said. “We have to move.”

The giant stooped, pulled his blade loose with a grunt, wiped the spatter of red from his face on his sleeve.

… friend . .?

No One looked to the rooftop overhead. She could see Daken’s silhouette against the bloody sky, a black shadow upon the eave, peering down to the drenched cobbles below. He saw the dead bushimen and licked his jowls.

Maybe …

“Huntsman, we need to go…”

“I have a flat, north of Downside.” The big man wrapped his kusarigama back around his waist. “It’s a trek, but we can lay low there for a while.”

No One eyed his leg, the bloodstain seeping through the fabric of his hakama. “My place is much closer. Easier to get to.”

“Is it safe?”

“Safer than being out here in broad daylight.”

The Huntsman looked around the street, down at the cooling meat at his feet.

… they coming …

“We need to go,” she said. “If you still think I brought the bushi’ here, ask yourself why I just shot one of them right in front of you. Ask yourself why I don’t blow out your kneecaps now and wait for more to arrive.”

He licked the sweat from his lips. Stared into her eye. Nodded slow.

“All right, then.”

“My name is Hana,” she said. “My real name, I mean.”

In the distance, they could hear running feet. Cries of alarm. The ringing of an iron bell. The big man sniffed, pulled his hat farther down over his face.

“Akihito,” he said. “My friends called me Akihito.”

9 A HEART EXHAUSTED

There weren’t tears enough for her grief.

All around her, she could hear the voices of the bamboo kami, the spirits in the stalks swaying with the gentle wind. The little girl stood by her brother’s grave, bloodshot eyes and sodden cheeks, Lady Sun filling the clearing with hateful, dappled light. The spirit stone on his burial plot was marked with his name, the day of his death and the day of his birth—the same day as hers.

Nine years ago that day.

“Happy birthday, Satoru,” Yukiko whispered.

It had been three months since the snake-strike. Three months since her twin died in her arms. It felt as if a part of her was missing—as if the gods had broken off a piece of her and left it bleeding on the floor. Her mother was lost in grief. Her father in guilt. But Yukiko? She was lost in the enormity of it all. A world too vast and lonely now that her brother wasn’t there to share it. An emptiness never filled. A hand never held. A question never answered.

“Ichigo.”

Her father’s voice, behind her, calling her by his pet name. She did not turn, simply stared through the tears at the bed where her brother would lay forever.

He knelt beside her on the warm ground, his long hair caught in the breeze and tickling her tear-stained cheeks. He touched her hand, gentle as snowflakes. She turned to look at him then, this man she called father that in truth she barely knew. A tanned and weatherworn face, roguish and handsome. Long moustache and dark hair, just beginning to gray at the temples. Dark, sparkling eyes, always searching.

He’d never been there when they were growing up, forever off on his grand hunts at the Shogun’s behest. He would return to their little valley every once in a while, spoil them for a day or two, then disappear for months at a time. But he always brought the twins presents. He could always make her smile. And when he would lift her on his shoulders and carry her through the bamboo forest, it made her feel as tall as giants. Fierce as dragons.

“Have you finished packing your things?” he asked.

She blinked, avoided his gaze. She didn’t think it had been settled. She didn’t think her mother would ever agree to it. She thought maybe after her brother …

“We are still going to the Shogun’s court then?”

“We must, Ichigo. My Lord commands and I obey.”

“But what about Satoru?” she whispered. “He’ll be all alo—”

The sentence cracked along with her voice and she turned her eyes to the grave at her feet. Tears swelled inside her, a choking ball of heat creeping up her throat. The empty yawned all about her, the world too big for her alone.