Oni are the demon spawn of the Yomi underworld. Servants of the dark beyond darkness, children of the great black mother, Lady Izanami, born and beholden to the shadow.
Perhaps that’s why Yukiko and the arashitora didn’t see them coming. Wind scrabbled through the trees, tearing blossoms and leaves from the branches and whipping them into blinding flurries, thunder and rain drumming in their ears until the entire world seemed one endless drone. The pair stumbled on through the deep of night, looking for a cave, a hollowed tree, anything to shield them from the elements. The demons fell on them as they entered a copse of oak, downwind and silent as vapor. Like spiders dropping from the trees, all long limbs and wicked teeth, studded tetsubos and ten-span swords clutched in clawed hands. In the split second before the war club landed on the thunder tiger’s skull, Yukiko glanced up and screamed a warning. The arashitora moved quick as lightning, knocking her sideways and into a tangle of battered pink hydrangeas.
The war club smashed the ground like an anvil, the ten-span sword whistling over the thunder tiger’s head. And then there was only motion, a kind of brutal poetry, lashing out with beak and talon and spraying the leaves with hissing, black blood. The first demon fell with its throat torn out, the arashitora spitting chunks of dark flesh onto the leaves. He hurled himself skyward, furiously thrashing his wings, landing atop the second’s shoulders and raking the creature’s gut with the hooked sabers on his hind legs. Coils of thick black intestine unfurled with a stench of funeral pyres, and Yukiko clapped her hands over her mouth to hold back the vomit.
A third demon dropped from the shadows above them and landed behind the thunder tiger, raising its iron club high above its head. Yukiko moved without thinking, pushing a warning into the beast’s mind and darting forth from the hydrangeas. She hacked at the demon’s Achilles tendon with her tantō. She felt a moment’s resis tance, as if cleaving through old, salted rope. But the blade was of the finest crafting, folded one hundred and one times by the venerable Phoenix swordsage, Fushicho Otomo, and blue flesh soon gave way in a mist of hissing ichor.
The oni screeched, clutching its ankle and tumbling to the ground. The arashitora was on it in a second, cutting like a whirlwind, a jagged scythe of blades and feathers that left little more than a blue-black smear in its wake.
When he was done, the thunder tiger shook himself as a dog might, spraying black gore in all directions. His flanks heaved, great gusts of breath hissing from his open beak and scattering the dead leaves. Steam rose off his fur in warm drifts, eyes glittering with the joy of the kill. He stared at her, gaze flickering to the tiny blade in her hand.
SMALL KNIFE.
Yukiko pushed her sweat-slick hair out of her eyes, nodding at the demon’s severed ankle. Her arm was painted to the elbow in rancid black.
Big enough.
She felt a grudging respect rising in him despite his efforts to push it away. Though he didn’t acknowledge it, she could sense his gratitude, the knowledge that the oni would probably have staved in his skull had she failed to call out in time.
BRAVE.
He wiped his claws on the dead leaves, and with a swish of his tail, turned to leave. Pausing, he looked over his shoulder, eyes fixed on her.
COME.
He moved off into the darkness.
Trying to stifle her smile, Yukiko followed.
The night stretched on, dark and soaking, and dawn seemed a thousand miles away. A chill settled over the forest, altitude and the howling storm slowly leaching the heat from the earth and her own tired bones. Yukiko’s clothes were drenched, wind cutting through her like a nagamaki’s blade through snow-white feathers, and she wrapped her arms around herself and shuffled along in the dark, almost too exhausted to keep her eyes open. The rain was a constant, a deluge pressing her toward the sodden ground, her mood sinking into the mud along with her feet. She tried to keep the misery at bay, thinking of the bamboo valley, the warm stretches of green grass and crystal-clear water, shimmering with heat. But thoughts of the valley brought her back to her father, the bitter words they had shared before the Thunder Child fell from the skies.
The slap on her cheek.
The hiss through gritted teeth.
“I hate you.”
She had meant it. Every word. And yet the thought of him lying bleeding in
the wreckage of the lifeboat, of never seeing him again . . . it was almost more than she could bear. Her muscles burned, lungs aching with each breath, and she stumbled and fell into the muck, too tired to plant one foot in front of the other. The arashitora watched her trying to stand, her fingers curled into claws, chest heaving.
YOU ARE WELL?
No, I’m not well. It’s pouring with rain and I’m so tired I can barely walk. He eyed her up and down with disdain.
WEAK.
We need to find shelter. Somewhere I can start a fire. We’re far enough away
from the dark temple now.
WOOD WET. WILL NOT BURN.