beading on their skin. The air was moist with storm-threat, clouds gathering to the north for a final push on the city. Hajime wiped his brow with his jin-haori and cast a mournful glance in the direction of the docks, listening to the sounds of music and bustling crowds drifting from the bay. The gala was well underway; the crackle of smoke sticks and spark poppers could be heard among the multitude of voices floating on the wind. He imagined his son’s eyes lit with delight as he watched the real fireworks to night.
Lightning flashed on the horizon. “At least we get off at dusk,” he sighed. “The real party will start then, assuming this storm doesn’t piss all over everything.”
“You’re also assuming they’ll relieve us. Daisuke was too drunk to show up last festival.”
“If we’re stuck here all night, I’m going to . . .”
His sentence trailed off as the girl appeared, sashaying around the corner in a sleeveless, split-leg black kimono. She held a wicker basket in her arms. A beautiful tiger curled around one bicep, the imperial sun radiating across the other. Flawless make-up, polished lenses, gleaming, candy-red lips.
“Michi-chan,” Rokorou nodded, straightening slightly and sucking in his gut.
“Good day, brave bushimen,” she smiled.
“Why aren’t you at the gala? The parade will be starting soon.”
“My Lady commands me to bring refreshment to those stalwart souls who do honor to her brother, Yoritomo-no-miya, and forsake the gala’s joys for duty.”
The girl gave a mock salute, then reached into the basket and produced two bottles of rice wine and two ripe nectarines, fresh and plump. The guards’ eyes widened; the fruit was easily worth more than a week’s pay. They bowed thanks and took the offerings, shooting each other broad grins.
“Not so bad a duty after all, eh?” Rokorou took a long swig of wine. “Your Lady does us much honor, Michi-chan.” Hajime bowed again. Shrugging off his gauntlets, he cut the fruit and popped a slice between his teeth.
“Aiya, it’s good,” he groaned.
Rokorou plowed into his own fruit as Hajime remembered his manners, offering a slice to the serving girl. She blushed and bowed from the knee, looking to the floor.
“My thanks, sama, but the gift was for you alone.”
“At least have a drink with us?” Rokorou took another pull from the bottle, glaring up at the suns. The sky began to blur around the edges.
“Hai, drink and be joyful, give thanks to Yoritomo-no-miya, next Stormdancer of Shima.” Hajime laughed, stumbling back against the wall. He frowned and stared at the fruits in his seven hands, feeling the stone beneath his feet turn to jelly.
A gasp. The sound of metal and bone hitting stone. The stink of urine.
Shapes emerged from the shadows, moving swiftly. Two men grabbed the slumbering guards and dragged them down an alleyway. A young boy dashed a pail of brackish water onto the floor to wash away the piss and blood. Akihito rounded the corner, broad-brimmed straw hat, long scars showing on his chest between the folds of his uwagi. Kasumi walked beside him, surefooted, feline grace, bo-staff in her hands.
“Are we ready?” the big man asked.
Michi glanced to the alley mouth as her fellows returned in the uniforms of the poisoned guards. One of them tossed a ring of keys, glittering in the scarlet glare. Michi snatched them from the air without looking. She glanced up to the big man, nodded to Kasumi and drew her tsurugi from the basket. The blade was two feet long, straight and double-edged, keen as razors.
“Now we are.”
Thunder rolled in the distance.
“No mercy.”
Yukiko padded into the arena, split-toed socks on bare stone, hands folded inside the sleeves of her uwagi. She nodded to the bushiman guarding the archway, her shy smile returned with lecherous enthusiasm. He held up his hand as she approached, fingers spread, wrapped in banded iron.
“And what are you doing here without an escort, little one?” A roar from the arena, deafening, bellowing, reverberating off the warm stone. The bushiman turned toward Buruu, eyes narrowing, tightening his grip on the war club at his waist. The hypo was heavy in her hands, slipping from her sleeve, black liquid sloshing viscous in the syringe. She slid it through a gap in his breastplate, just below his armpit. He gasped, clutched the pinprick and collapsed on the ground in a blacksleep stupor.
The echoes of the roar had died by the time his comrade returned from the privy, still tying up the waist of his hakama.
“What the hells is it making noise about now . . .”