The kami made another pass, which he narrowly avoided. Toshi drew his swords and crossed them in front of him, turning to keep them between himself and the kami. If it were mindless enough, it might shred itself against his blades on its next strike.
The wind redoubled, and the flying kami became a blur. Toshi felt a shock and heard a metallic crack as the spirit slammed into his crossed blades. Thrown back by the impact, Toshi lost his long blade when his back met a large boulder alongside the path.
His vision doubled, and he shook his head to clear it. The kami darted like a dragonfly, dashing to Toshi’s left and right so quickly he could scarcely follow its motion. He was safer with his back to the boulder, but the loss of his sword balanced that advantage. He felt a warm liquid running down the back of his empty hand. The spirit’s sharp body had split open the flesh between his knuckles, and blood dripped down onto the frozen ground.
Reflexively, Toshi tried to come up with an appropriate kanji symbol he could inscribe using his own blood-a kanji inscribed with bodily humors was far more powerful than one done in ink or chalk. The bird moved too fast for him to mark it, but maybe he could mark something else.
With his short sword held out in one hand, Toshi kept his eyes fixed on the slashing kami and probed the rock behind him with his bleeding fist. He quickly traced the kanji that had allowed him to escape Uramon and Kiku, the first spell he had cast after accepting the blessings of Night’s Reach. Normally, it was a straightforward concealment charm. With the power of the myojin behind it, it was something far more profound.
The wind-shear kami came screaming forward, its wings spread wide. Toshi focused his thoughts and felt the sting of the myojin-powered mark on his forearm.
“Fade,” he said, rapping his bloody fist on the rock behind him. He pressed his palm flat against the center of the character he’d inscribed.
The kami came on, gathering speed. Toshi felt his body melt away. He lowered his sword.
The scything air spirit soared through him without resistance and on into the now-insubstantial boulder. It banked and tried to come up short of the mountainside beyond the phantom stone.
Toshi concentrated on his palm and the kanji beneath it. He felt the point of contact between his body, the symbol, and the stone, then stepped away.
The surface of the rock clung to his palm for a moment then peeled off. Robbed of its living energy, the kanji spell winked out like a candle between moistened fingertips. The boulder became solid once more-Toshi could see the wind-driven snow change course as the mass of stone returned to deflect it.
Trapped inside, the wind-shear kami found its body irrevocably woven into the rock. Only the tips of its wings and its glowing eyes protruded. Its last shrieking cry slowly lost strength and volume until it died against the wind in Toshi’s ears.
He stood and watched until the spirit’s form had shimmered and vanished from sight. They always evaporated after they died. In the growing storm, he could see strange patterns in the surface of the rock where the kami’s wings had poked through.
Toshi retrieved his sword. He bandaged his hand, tightened his pack, and started up the mountain trail.
From here on in, he knew, things were going to get tricky.
CHAPTER 4
They had been climbing for three days. Toshi’s trail meandered but never strayed far from the path thawing snow had carved into the Heart of Frost. It was a monotonous and exhausting enterprise, made all the more so by the nezumi trackers and the hatchet men.
As a professional Kiku was obliged to retrieve Toshi. The others were merely slaves or prisoners, pathetically trying to cling onto their lives before Uramon took them completely. The jushi swore to make Toshi pay. She had known him for years, had worked with him when he was one of Uramon’s reckoners. They had never come into professional conflict, so they had managed not to make any serious attempts on each other’s lives until now.
A nezumi stopped on the path in front of her to sniff the air. Without slowing or breaking stride, Kiku kicked the rat-man aside and kept trudging through the snow.
He squawked and growled, “Hey! How am I-”
Kiku turned and glared. The craven little vermin suddenly curled himself into a ball and covered his face, mewling piteously. Kiku pulled her heavy hooded cloak tight and cursed the ochimusha once more.
She would kill Toshi for this. She hated the cold, she hated nezumi, and she hated owing Boss Uramon. If Toshi had just knuckled under and agreed to do the job, things would have been perfect. Uramon would have sent them out to ambush the soratami, and they’d have been obliged to deliver. Apart from that, whatever arrangement she and Toshi came to once the job was underway would have been entirely up to them. She did not trust him, but she did like the idea of putting his skills and his devious mind to work for her benefit.
The wind cut through her clothes, and she grimaced. Look at us now, she thought. You’re running to the least hospitable place in the world in the hopes it’ll keep us from following you, and I have to bring you back. There’s no chance of any side deals or limited partnership now, Toshi Umezawa. I’m readying another very special flower just for you.
Soon there wouldn’t be enough light to continue. The nezumi could track at night, but the temperature on the mountain dropped dangerously low in the dark. If they didn’t take shelter they’d be dead in a matter of hours.
Kiku stopped. “Marrow-Gnawer,” she said, “come here.”
Marrow-Gnawer growled something at his fellow rats and skittered back down the path. He was wearing a leather collar that fit tightly around his neck.
“How far ahead is he?”
Marrow-Gnawer grunted. “Half a day or less. Hard to tell in the cold.”
Kiku pulled out her fan and snapped it open. She used it to cover her face from the eyes down and leaned down to Marrow-Gnawer.
“Send two of your friends ahead. Have them go as far as they can. If they catch sight of him, they can come back and tell us.”
Marrow-Gnawer glared, but his voice was calm. “Excuse, ma’am. They’ll die before dawn.”
Kiku leaned closer, the fan undulating slightly. “I don’t care. If he’s close enough to catch, I want to know tonight.”
Marrow-Gnawer nodded, his face grim. “Even if they see him, they’ll die. Why not just kill them here?” He put his hand on the jagged rusty blade on his hip. “Or let me.”
Kiku stood up. “I have a feeling-” she waved her fan more vigorously-“that he’s closer than you think. It’d be like him to double back and spring something on us.”
She snapped the fan shut and smiled at the nezumi leader. “Send two up the path, now. Or I’ll send the whole lot of you, one in every direction.”
Marrow-Gnawer nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Marrow’s scouts came back just before dawn. Kiku was awake and ready when he cleared his throat outside her tent.
“What have they found?”
“A symbol,” Marrow-Gnawer replied. “A kanji painted on the bark of a tree.”
Kiku stepped out into the frigid night. The snow and wind had stopped, and the stars were clear and brittle overhead. Kiku’s breath came in thick white clouds through the scarf covering her face.
“Painted with what?”
Marrow-Gnawer looked pained. “Didn’t say.”
Kiku rolled her eyes. “Too much to suppose you illiterate dungballs recognized the symbol?”
Marrow-Gnawer shook his head. “No, jushi. Not nezumi-tongue.”