“Kill them all!”
Hammers high, his men set about the grim task of butchery. Aleksandar stood on the battlements in the rain, looming over his fallen foe. He rolled the body over with his boot, straining with the weight. As the corpse flopped onto its back, one arm fell outstretched, fingers uncurling from a tiny picture frame on a leather cord, gleaming in the black rain. Aleksandar plucked the prize from the fallen samurai’s hand, looking down on a small portrait—a beautiful woman, a handsome boy, two pretty girls. Smiling faces, eyes shining with the joy of better days.
Not so different.
Not so strange.
He stared at the ruin of this man who called him “brother,” heart slowing in his chest as chaos filled the air, hanging in the skies with the echo of Mother Natassja’s words.
“Your sons will remember this day. How they remember is up to you.”
Aleksandar picked up the Dragon flag, lying in the blood where he’d thrown it. He draped it over the fallen samurai’s body, covered the shattered face. Thunder bellowed overhead, a deafening whip-crack rumbling down his spine. He could hear the carnage around him. Corpses toppling from the walls. Blood like rain. Men and boys screaming. His mouth tasted black, lips split and throat choking.
He said a prayer for the fallen samurai, tucked the portrait into his belt and began trudging back to command with the taste of bile in his mouth. The taste of blood. The taste that, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he would rather spit than swallow.
Victory.
12
THE HAND WE ARE DEALT
“Lady Fortune pisses on me again,” Akihito growled.
The Blackbird laughed, leaned forward with a broad grin, dragging the pile of copper bits from the center of the table.
“Uzume is a capricious bitch, my friend. Only Foxes and fools throw prayers her way. Better off praying to Fūjin like me. At least the God of Wind and Ways can pick a direction.”
Four figures sat cross-legged around a low table in the gardens of Kitsune-jō, listening to the sound of mustering troops, hammers beating anvils, distant thunder. Yukiko and Hana were in counsel with the Kitsune clanlord, organizing accommodations for the Kagé refugees. And though it was still bitterly cold, a feeble patch of sunlight had broken through the clouds, encouraging a few players to gather for a round of lunchtime oicho-kabu.
There was Akihito of course, still dressed in dappled Iishi green and brown. His trusty kusarigama was wrapped at his waist, the sickle-blade newly sharpened, a great iron-studded warclub that doubled as a crutch close to hand. His hair was bound in warrior’s braids, beard not quite long enough to plait. One of the Kagé had given him some resin instead, and he’d fashioned his whiskers into a collection of impressive spikes.
Piotr sat beside him, the muted day reflected in the milk-white of his blind eye, the flower-blue of the other. Despite what anyone told him about the effect of Shima’s sunlight, Piotr refused to wear a pair of goggles. He was dressed in a strange jacket of deep red, his wolf skin folded up beneath him as a cushion. When he laughed, the gouge below his right eye deepened, the hook-shaped furrow leading up to his missing ear like a new smile. He was no master’s portrait, but the man had saved Yukiko’s life. The round-eye could be missing his entire face along with his wedding tackle and Akihito would still have called him brother.
The Blackbird sat opposite, broad and barrel-chested, slouched beneath the brim of his enormous straw hat. In the ongoing war of the beards, the cloudwalker captain was the clear winner—whiskers thick enough to plant a rice crop in, plaited three times down his belly. The Blackbird had a deep, booming voice and a laugh Akihito could feel in his chest.
Lastly amongst the card players, there was Yoshi. The bruises on the boy’s face had almost faded, but Akihito could still see the damage, within if not without. The boy’s hair was tied in a plain topknot, blond roots showing. He didn’t join in with the banter, but Akihito considered it a miracle he’d been able to drag the boy from his room at all. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Yoshi’s infamous lopsided smile.
“All right, deal again, you Dragon dog.” Akihito tossed the deck to the Blackbird. “And I’m watching you shuffle.”
“I’m thinking you should quit while you’re behind, Akihito-san.” Michi looked up from her calligraphy desk. “You don’t strike me as the lucky type.”
The girl sat nearby, smoking some of Piotr’s honeyweed, teeth clamped on the stem of a bone pipe. Bee-stung lips and pale skin bereft of paint, hair tied back in a simple braid. Without making an effort, she still turned the heads of many of the Kitsune soldiers, but the chainsaw blades at her back ensured most kept their stares to themselves.