blinding, looking up and down the line of useless ’throwers as the Thunder God laughed in the sky above.
The battle was joined out in the dark, Kin stumbling toward it, a heavy wrench dragged from his tool belt to serve as a weapon. He had no warrior’s training, but still, he couldn’t sit back and do nothing. Figures swayed and danced in the rain, cries of pain and awful roars filling the empty spaces between one peal of thunder and the next. Kaori fighting on the left flank, just a blur in the darkness. Daichi in the thick of it, blade slick with dark blood. Moving as if to music, flowing without pause, step to feint to strike to thrust, cleaving broad swathes of sticky black, swinging his mighty two-handed blade as if an extension of his own arm. A flick of his wrist and an oni’s leg toppled to the ground in a spray of dark gore, followed swiftly by its howling owner. A step to the left and a casual wave, cleaving throat to the bone, swaying amidst the blows, a poet writing his masterpiece in warmest, blackest ink.
A rolling seething mob, oni and Kage falling in equal measure, Kaori scaling one demon’s back and plunging her blade into the base of its skull. Maro’s arm hanging limp, battling side by side with Isao and Takeshi over a fallen comrade, the three of them slicing their foe’s gut open, wading ankle deep in rolling coils of intestine. The tide was turning, the Kage gaining ground. But the oni lord had cleared a swathe through his foes, eyes set on Daichi, looming through the mob as Kin shouted warning.
The old man turned, steel flashing, stepping to one side as the demon brought his war club crashing down. Mud spattering, dead leaves flying, Daichi’s eyes narrowed in contempt as he stepped forward, sliced the oni across its belly. Kin running through the muck, an oni looming out of the gloom in front of him. The boy dodged past its blade, almost slipping on the dead leaf carpet as three Kage stepped up to meet the demon’s challenge. Panic in his chest, knowledge that he had no place here—no business on a battlefield with a wrench in his hand and fear in his heart—but still he turned and fought, bashing at the oni’s shins as it whirled to face him, the blow jarring his arms, the stench of funeral pyres assailing his nose, the demon roaring as if all the hells lived inside its mouth. He rolled aside as its blade swept over his head, the Kage striking from behind, steel and rain and blood and thunder, black spots blooming in his eyes as he lurched to his feet, sparing a glance for Daichi through the now blinding downpour.
The old man’s chest heaved, lips pressed thin, blade slicked with gore as the oni lord swung with reckless abandon. The demon was bloodied in a dozen places; arms, legs, gut, face, and had yet to land a single blow on the old Iron Samurai. Rage turned its eyes incandescent, burning with the fury of Lady Sun as it lunged forward and received yet another wound for its troubles. The old man was fighting as if whittling wood, carving off one chunk at a time, dancing back out of striking range and allowing bloodloss and fatigue to do most of his heavy lifting. The power of Yomi versus a lifetime of steel’s tutelage. The fury of all the hells versus a tranquility born of the love of the blade, the way of war, the heart of a tiger true.
Until the old man started coughing.
A sputter at first, widening his eyes just a fraction. A wet intake of breath, muscles clenched tight. Stepping aside from another blow, Daichi coughed again, damp and sputtering, pressing one hand to his chest as if pained. Kin yelled warning, roaring to Kaori, turning from the snarling demon facing him and dashing through the rain. Daichi staggered, mouth pressed to sleeve, and as he lifted his blade to ward off a savage blow, Kin swore he could see a dark stain on the old man’s lips. A blacklung spasm, gripping him now of all times, the disease slowly reaching into the old man’s chest and turning all to ruin.
Daichi fell back, coughing still, Kaori rising from the steaming ruin of a pit demon’s corpse and yelling above the storm. Maro answered with a cry—“To Daichi! Daichi!”, the Kage charging toward their failing captain, blades raised high. And the oni lord lifted its war club, lips split in a jagged grin, spit hissing through its teeth as it swung in a whistling arc, smashing Daichi’s sword into glittering fragments. The old man staggered, crying out amidst sodden gasps, the demon lord following up with a savage kick directly into the old man’s chest.
Kaori screamed, Kin along with her, Daichi sailing half a dozen feet to land crumpled and bleeding in the muck. The demon lord stepped forward, intent only on the old man’s murder, raising its war club high. With a desperate cry, Kin hurled his wrench—just a tiny, gleaming sliver of greasy metal against this towering monstrosity. The throw struck true, cracking into the back of the oni lord’s skull, just a fleabite onto hardened leather. But it was enough to give the demon pause, a second to snarl and flinch, and in that moment, Kaori closed in, a black shark through bloodied water, stepping up onto a broken tree stump and leaping through the air, her blade sinking into the oni lord’s back. Maro struck a moment later, carving a gouge through the demon’s Achilles tendon, the monster roaring in pain, falling to one knee. Others struck now, Isao, Atsushi, Takeshi, blades rising and falling like abattoir knives and beneath the flood, the rain, the flashing steel, the demon lord fell roaring and flailing, silenced at the last by a scything blow from Kaori’s blade, ear to pointed ear, bathing the woman in a black, hissing spray.
“Father!” she cried, stumbling to her knees at the old man’s side. Daichi lay on his back, hand clutched to chest, drawing bloody breath through bubbling lips. The other Kage gathered around him, painted in black gore, faces pale and horrified.
Kin caught several dark stares as he approached, muttered curses, glances toward the failed ’throwers. He heard the word “accursed” and “Guildsman,” felt angry eyes on him in the dark, and a cool dread seeped into his belly. He tried to push through the mob to Daichi’s side, found his way barred by Maro’s heavy hand, the Kage captain looking at him with bitter rage.
“Stay the hells away from him,” he hissed.
“I can help h—”
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough, you godless little bastard?” Maro hissed.
“Maro, forget the Guildsman!” Kaori yelled, tears in her eyes. “Help me with my father!”
The captain turned from Kin with a snarl, knelt beside Daichi. Four Kage lifted the old man onto their shoulders and he cried out, clutching his ribs, mouth painted in a bloody
Thunder roaring overhead. Wind clawing through the trees. Rain hissing like a serpent’s nest. Limping and bleeding and dazed, the Kage headed back to the shelter of the village. Kin stood amidst it all, lost and adrift, knocked aside by one warrior, yet another spitting at his feet. His agonized gaze was fixed on the silent ’throwers, the ruptured seals, wondering again how it was possible. For one to fail, perhaps. Two an outside chance. But for all to malfunction at once? How could it be?
He staggered through the rain toward his emplacement, sickness roiling in his belly.
“Guildsman.”
Isao’s voice brought him up short. Grabbed him by the throat and bid him turn to stare.
Three of them stood there in the rain. Isao. Atsushi. Takeshi. Arms folded, fists clenched, anger and contempt unveiled on their faces. Takeshi took a step toward him, but Isao put out a restraining hand, muttered something too low for Kin to hear. With a snarl, the big boy turned to the fallen oni, Atsushi by his side. Walking from body to body, they chopped at the pit demon’s throats, sluices of black blood arcing in the rain, ensuring every one of them was dead.
Isao remained. Eyes narrowed. Sword sheathed at his back. And lifting one slow hand, he pointed at Kin, then made a sawing motion at his throat.
Dread lined Kin’s guts with a sickly chill. The other Kage had already moved off, his knowledge that he was alone out here burning with sudden clarity in his mind. And so he slunk into the scrub, into the shadows, finally bolting for the Kage prison. It was the only place he could think to go. He knew now the boys would stop at nothing. If they were willing to do this, they were willing to do anything.
He recalled Isao’s appeal for Daichi not to fight at the ’thrower line. The boy had been pleading. Almost desperate. And now, Kin finally understood why. The image lingering in his mind’s eye as he ran—Isao sawing away at his throat, the telltale black stain in the flickering storm light.
Grease stains on his hands.
24
