They are many. Birthed from the stinking cracks of the Iishi hell gate, heeding the call of the Red Bone Warlord. Dragging themselves from beds of flint and pits of rancid blood, thunderous drums echoing across dark places, bidding them up into the light of the night.
Servants of a deeper darkness. Crouched on her bone mountain in the sunless depths of the Yomi underworld, empty eyes and blackened womb, a tarnished wedding band clutched in the palm of one bloodless hand. She Who Feasts in the Dark, Broodmare of Demons, Queen of the Hungry Dead, whom the Book of Ten Thousand Days calls Endsinger. They, her servants, her faithful, her children. Leaking through rifts of stone into a world she has promised to destroy, a dark and rising tide, swelling drop by drop until it becomes the flood that heralds the Last Day.
Their feet are as an earthquake upon the ground. Their swords are sharp as razors. Their war clubs thick as tree trunks. Black words crawl along their spines, thrumming in their veins, filling them with blackest rage at the loss of their brethren.
The bay and howl, the cry for blood.
The hymn of the Endsinger. Yukiko crouched in the tree beside Buruu, knife clutched in her hand, nestled inside the arashitora’s mind. Eagle eyes, needle-sharp, piercing the darkest shadow. There was no movement in the forest but the flutter of tiny beasts and birds, mirrored in the flutter of the pulse in her veins. But she knew they were close.
She reached out with the Kenning, straining to her limits, feeling the terror of small warm things at the oni’s approach: a multitude of giants, belts of skulls, eyes aglow, feet thundering upon the earth and sending tiny, frightened shapes scampering into the dark.
The Kagé crouched in the trees beside her, mere shadows against the pattern of green and black, swelling and shifting in the chill night wind. Yukiko could see Kaori, wakizashi naked in her hand, folded steel painted with lamp-black to avoid the glint of lightning or stray moonlight. The approaching monsoon growled in the dark skies overhead. The crack of thunder shook her insides and Buruu purred like a kitten in the aftershocks, the boom resonating in his chest as he stared with longing up at the gathering clouds.
The Kagé were grouped in a tight knot, three, sometimes four to a tree. Isao was wrapped around the branch above Yukiko’s head. She looked up and found him glaring at her, eyes narrowed to knife-cuts. Her voice was a whisper, “How do you know the demons will come this way?”
The boy lifted his mask to spit down onto the leaves below. He stared at her for a long, pregnant moment before he answered.
“The mountain gives them only one approach.” He nodded west. “The pit traps funnel them in this direction. We have been preparing for this night for years. Though in truth, we thought it would be men of flesh who came for us, not oni. Iron Samurai and bushimen. Servants of your Shōgun.”
Yukiko felt a grudging admiration in Buruu’s chest.
You like these Kagé.
THEY SEE. THEY KNOW.
What do you mean?
THEY TURN WEAKNESS TO STRENGTH. THEY USE THE EARTH. NO BARRICADES OF DEAD TREES. NO BULWARKS OF STONE. THEY ARE FEW, FACING MANY. AND THEY ARE NOT AFRAID TO DIE.
No fanatic ever is.
THEY WILL WIN. THOUGH IT TAKE A HUNDRED YEARS, THEY WILL TOPPLE YOUR SHōGUN. BURN HIS FIELDS AND CITIES. FADE AWAY INTO SHADOW. INTO PLACES HIS ARMIES CANNOT REACH. MORE THAN FLESH. THEY ARE AN IDEA.
She watched the thunder tiger in the darkness, acutely aware of how much he had changed since the crash. His animal instinct, the primal aggression inside him, was being gradually tempered with elegant thought, complex concepts, all too human impulses growing through their bond. She realized that the link between them was changing him, her humanity leaking into him like irezumi ink spilled on cotton weave. He was becoming more.
But what might she become?
He is not my Shōgun, Buruu.
He blinked, tossed his head.
SO. ARE YOU RONIN TOO, THEN?
I cannot be ronin. I was never samurai.
YOU SEE. THE RED SKY. THE BLACK RIVERS. YOU KNOW.
She sighed, running her hand across her eyes.
I don’t know anything.
She looked up again, found Isao was still watching her, open hostility in his stare.
“What are you looking at?”
“The servant of my enemy,” he growled, averting his gaze. “Do not expect many here to weep if the oni kill you, girl.”
Buruu’s growl was low and soft. Yukiko reached out a comforting hand to quiet him. The thunder tiger stiffened, rising up into a half-crouch, hackles raised. Yukiko closed her eyes and looked into his distance, saw tall silhouettes moving in the dark, tiny pinpricks of glowing blood-red. She ignored the cold dread seeping into her gut.
“They’re coming,” she hissed to Isao.