He tilted his head, frowning, breath heaving in his lungs, listening to the fading report bouncing across cracking brick and crumbling mortar. Glancing at the streets around him, the sun above him, desperate to get his bearings. He cursed, torn with indecision, turning his head left and right. And with a whispered plea to Kitsune, he dashed off toward his best guess, hoping that, one last time, Fox would look after his own.
The distance between them had weakened the link, pulling them far enough apart that Buruu’s bloodlust was momentarily overcome by Yukiko’s fear of the iron-thrower. Alone among the Burning Stones, she could see Kin through Buruu’s eyes, desperately cutting through the thunder tiger’s tether, the arashitora near-mindless with impotent rage.
The iron chain melted, one droplet at a time.
The despoiler lord sneered as the killing fury inside her faded, the ugly, snubnosed barrel aimed squarely at her head. His eyes glowered above the iron sight.
YUKIKO.
Buruu.
WAIT FOR ME.
A bead of sweat crept down her face, the taste of salt lingering at the corners of her mouth. She was out of breath from the chase, heart thumping in her chest, wisps of loose hair plastered to her cheeks. Yoritomo backed away to a safe distance on the other side of the pyre pit, eyes narrowed at the dust and lotus ash blowing down the Way, coiling among the blackened tinder at the foot of the stones. The wind-swept space between them was too wide for Yukiko to lunge across with her tantō; he’d end her with the iron-thrower before she even got close. His lips were twisted in a cold smile, finger on the trigger, the barrel a bottomless black hole.
“So now you see what you are,” Yoritomo sneered. “One pathetic little girl. Nothing. Nothing at all.”
A crowd had gathered around them, wide-eyed and awe-struck. A small boy in a festival uwagi carrying a bright red balloon recognized Yukiko, pointed to her with a cry.
“Arashi-no-ko!”
The cry echoed across the Market Square, repeated in a dozen different voices down the street, the name spreading out like ripples on still water. Yukiko could hear heavy footsteps ringing on the cobbles, glanced toward the skyspires. A multitude of soldiers was rushing toward them up the Way, Iron Samurai and bushimen, chainkatana and naginata spears drawn, crying out in alarm. Dozens upon dozens. Too many even for Buruu.
They’d be here in moments.
She turned back to Yoritomo, fingers slick with sweat on the handle of her tantō, folded steel glinting in the light of the muted sun. She had bathed the blade in the blood of a dozen oni, cut demons from the deepest hell down to the bone. But the knife felt so tiny in her hands now; a fragile splinter of metal, far too short, far too small.
He’s too far away to touch.
WAIT FOR ME.
Yoritomo followed her gaze down the Palace Way, smiling at his men’s approach. The game was over. The girl had taken her chance, risked all in one final gambit. And the king still stood.
Check-mate.
“Your father is dead.” His smile was lazy. Gluttonous. “He and his whore and that ignorant Fushicho thug. They all died in the bowels of the prison, cut to pieces by my men. A pity they are not alive to torture. I will have to make do with you.”
Yukiko’s heart sank, bitter tears welling in her eyes. Her father. Akihito and Kasumi. So it had all been for nothing. The thought that she would never see them again filled her, an anguish and rage almost too painful to bear.
How much more can this man take from me?
She glanced back at the approaching guards, picturing the little bamboo valley where she had grown up, her father and mother seated by the fireside, she and her brother lying with old Buruu in their laps; the brief summer days before the winter it had all begun to fall apart. And in the wake of that image, a bright spark of realization rose above the despair inside, the burning anger of her loss.
She remembered the wolf, the cold winter snow, Satoru and old Buruu by her side. She remembered her rage at the hound’s death, reaching out across the Kenning to snuff out the wolf’s life with her hatred. She remembered the shape of Satoru’s mind, the pain of his death pushing her inside him as the venom took him away.
He’s too far away to touch.
She glared at Yoritomo across the stones.
But I don’t need to touch him to hurt him.
She reached out toward him, hands motionless, straining to her limits, her father’s words ringing in her ears.
This is something worth sacrificing for. Something greater.
NO. WAIT FOR ME.
Her temples began to throb, eyes narrowed to paper cuts.
I AM COMING.
The bushimen were seconds away. Crossbows and needle-throwers. Naginata and nagamaki. Buruu wouldn’t stand a chance.
They are too many.
WAIT FOR ME!
Help me, Buruu.
WAIT!
“I’m going to kill you, little girl,” Yoritomo sneered. “Like I killed your whore mother.”
Yukiko glanced at the young boy and his balloon. Fear and awe shone bright in the child’s eyes.
“Let me show you what one little girl can do,” she said.
Yoritomo frowned as the blood began dripping from her nose, bright, salty red spilling over her lips and mingling with the taste of her sweat. She felt the shape of him, the heat of him, stretching toward him and closing her fist about his mind. Somewhere far away, she could hear someone calling her name.