A few more years ought to cover it.
“W-we were looking for oni,” Atsushi stammered. “As Daichi-sama bid us. There have been reports of the demons moving in the deep woods. Their numbers are growing again.”
“They know nothing but hatred for our kind,” Isao said. “The children of the Endsinger do not sleep, Stormdancer.”
“Why do you call her that?” Kin scowled at the boys. “She has a name.”
Isao drummed his fingers on his war club, a studded tetsubo of solid oak, haft wrapped in bands of old, river-smooth leather. He glanced over briefly as Kin spoke, but dismissed the boy’s words without reply. Atsushi kept his eyes on Yukiko as if Kin hadn’t spoken at all.
Yukiko glanced at the pit trap. The hole was twenty feet cubed; big enough for an oni to fall into. It had been covered by a layer of foliage, concealed from anyone who wouldn’t recognize the warning markers around it. Judging from the hole in the covering, whatever had plunged through wasn’t much bigger than a man.
“We found it an hour ago.” Isao pointed to the trap with his war club. “It must have fallen in last night. Tracks came from the south.”
“Did you speak to it?”
“No.” Isao shook his head. “We saw it looked like Guild, so we sent Takeshi to find you and Daichi-sama. I’ll not speak to any bastard Lotusman. Their kind are poison.”
Yukiko saw the boy shoot a brief, venomous glance at Kin.
How did it find us?
PERHAPS YOU COULD USE YOUR TONGUE FOR ITS INTENDED PURPOSE AND ASK?
Yukiko poked out the aforementioned tongue and rolled her eyes.
Hilarious, you.
Buruu prowled to the lip of the pit, peeked over the edge, wings spread. He snorted, amber eyes narrowed to knife-cuts. His tail swept from side to side in swift, agitated arcs.
INTERESTING.
Yukiko crept up beside him, put her arm around his neck and looked into the hole. Two bulbous red eyes stared back at her. She saw a humanoid figure, wasp-waisted, a featureless face. It was covered head to foot in some kind of skin-tight membrane, earth-brown, slick and glistening. A cluster of eight chromed arms uncurled from a melon-sized orb on its back, as if some eyeless metal spider were fused with its flesh.
Yukiko’s hand went reflexively to the tantō at her back, her voice dripping revulsion.
“What the hells is that?”
4
DOPPELGANGER
The slap was perfect. Hard enough to rock the girl’s head back on her shoulders, bring tears to already red and swollen eyes. But not so hard as to split her lip, to leave a mark that wouldn’t set to fading after an hour or so. Spittle sprayed her face as the warden bellowed.
“Answer me, you little bitch!”
The girl hung her head, weeping, face hidden by a curtain of tangled hair. Her sobbing echoed off the damp stone of the prison cell, lank straw strewn underfoot. Manacled wrists, long knife wounds scabbed down her forearms. A cracked and swollen cheek healing slowly. Bare and bruised legs dotted with fresh lesions. A perceptive man might have noted the wounds were shaped like rat bites.
The warden’s patience had frayed to a few lonely threads over the past week. Each maidservant in his custody was technically nobility; in theory they had families to press the Tora Daimyo for their return—presuming a new clanlord was ever chosen, of course. Even after they’d been arrested, no official accusation was leveled by the disintegrating judiciary. And thus the warden was placed in the unenviable position of having to “make inquiries” of his prisoners without the burning iron or water torture usually employed during interrogations in Kigen jail.
It was enough to drive a fellow to drink.
The warden seized the girl’s throat, forced her head back so she could see his eyes. He saw naked fear, pupils dilated, discolored cheek wet with tears.
“You served Lady Aisha.” The girl gurgled as he tightened his grip. “Your mistress spent hours with the Kitsune girl, plotting her brother’s assassination. You were privy to all of it!”
“She always … sent us … out.” A croak through a cinched windpipe. “Always—”
“You are a Kagé spy! I want names, I want—”
“Warden!”
The shout rang out in the cell’s confines, taut with command. The warden turned and saw two bushimen in black-banded armor outside the cell, flanking a third man in a tailored kimono of rich scarlet.
The man’s hair was drawn back in an elaborate braid, pierced with golden pins. He was a good-looking fellow with a studious air; a handsome face with perpetually narrowed eyes, as if he spent too much time reading by lamplight. A chainkatana and wakizashi were crossed at his waist—the chainsaw daishō marking a nobleborn member of the military caste. He clutched a beautifully crafted iron fan in one hand. Smooth shaven, sharp jaw covered by an expensive clockwork breather. He was in his early twenties at most, but his rank was that of a man two decades older.