“MY NAME IS KIN!”
“You boys!” A woman’s shout. “Leave him alone!”
Kin heard sandals slapping against the floorboards, felt the weight on his chest ease. Isao stood and sheathed his tantō, wiped the spittle from his face. His cheeks were flushed with rage, breath coming in quick, heaving gasps. The blood on his mouth was red as the wounded sky outside, bottom lip already swelling.
Kin rolled to his knees, dry retching and clutching his collarbone. Through the blur of sweat and pain, he saw Old Mari standing in the doorway, brandishing a cane as ancient and gnarled as she was.
“Get away from him.” The old woman’s voice was hoarse with indignation. “Go on, off with you. Three against one? You shame yourselves.”
The boys muttered and shuffled toward the door. Isao straightened his goggles, lips curled into an upside-down grin. He pointed at Kin, spit blood at his feet.
“See you tomorrow, Guildsman.”
Old Mari shoved through the boys as they loped out, smacking Takeshi on the behind with her walking stick. Ayane reached through the bars, clutched at Kin’s hand.
“First Bloom, are you all right?”
It took a minute or two for him to catch his breath, crouched with one palm planted on the floor. He touched his ribs and winced, straightened with a groan.
“I’m all right…”
“Disgraceful.” Mari clapped her cane upon the boards, scowling after the boys. “What matter if Isao and Takeshi are oni killers? You’d think before teaching them the sword, Sensei Ryusaki would teach them some damned courtesy.”
Kin looked at the old woman, tried to twist his grimace into a smile. She was a good foot shorter than he, stick-thin, back bent as if she carried the world upon her shoulders. One hand clasped her walking stick, the other a basket laden with fish and rice. Her skin was like leather, gray hair bound in a widow’s bun, rheumy eyes pouched in bags so heavy Kin wondered how she could see at all. She was in charge of the Kagé infirmary, had cared for Kin as he recovered from his trek to the Iishi. Her bedside manner was as pleasant as a flying kick to the privates, but she’d patched him up well enough.
“That was damned foolish of you.” She looked him up and down, her scowl undiminished. “Taking on three at once. Who do you think you are, Kitsune no Akira? The old Stormdancers usually had thunder tigers with them in battle.”
“They cornered us.” He touched the input jack at his collar, wincing. “I’ve done all the running I’m going to do. A man faces his enemies.”
“Oh, so you’re a man, are you? Ready to take on the world alone?”
“Ready to stand up for myself, at least.”
“The best thing you can do is tell Daichi.”
“No.” Ayane looked at the old woman with pleading eyes. “I do not wish for there to be any trouble on my account.”
“Daichi won’t care, Mari,” Kin sighed.
“Remain a fool, then,” Mari shrugged. “But if Yukiko were here, she’d—”
“Well, she’s not here, is she? And sometimes I wonder why the hells I am.”
Kin ran one hand over the stubble at his scalp, pulled his anger into check. Talking like that in front of Ayane wasn’t going to make her feel any more at ease. It wasn’t going to make him feel better, either. He glanced sideways at the old woman, sighing.
“What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I heard the False-Lifer cry out.”
“Her name is Ayane.”
Old Mari pursed her lips, utterly ignoring the girl behind the bars. “Don’t you have work to do? Something other than serving as a punching bag, I mean? Ryusaki was looking for you earlier.”
“I know, I know.” He pointed to the crumpled plans strewn across the floor. “I was just about to head out to the line.”
A scowling sigh. “Well, I’m on my way to take the boys breakfast now, if you wish to skulk along behind me. Just don’t walk too close.”
Kin turned to Ayane. “Are you going to be all right here?”
The girl offered him a tiny, frightened smile. “I cannot be anywhere else, can I?”
“I’ll come back and check on you tonight, if you like?”
“Hai.” The smile broadened. “Very much.”
Kin gathered up the scattered plans, nodded good-bye, limped out the door. Old Mari led the way, her cane beating crisp upon swaying footbridges. Nodding and smiling to the other villagers and studiously ignoring Kin, careful not to give the impression they were walking together. The old woman was remarkably spry, even with her arms laden, scaling down one of the winding ladders from the hidden village to the forest floor. As Kin stumbled after her through the undergrowth, autumn’s scent wrapped him in soft hands, the warm perfume soothing the ache of footprints on his ribs. Walking miles through beautiful green and rusting hues, Old Mari slowed down enough for Kin to catch up with her. She said nothing, but occasionally the boy caught her watching him out of the corner of her sandbag eyes.
Finally arriving at the first of the emplacements, Kin found a group of Kagé standing beside the bent and scowling lump of a heavy shuriken-thrower. Truth be told, it wasn’t the prettiest contraption Kin had ever turned a wrench on; four long, flattened barrels, a twisted knot of hydraulics and feeder belts, planted in the earth on a tripod of hastily welded iron. An operator’s seat was affixed to the ’throwers backside, allowing the controller to swivel with the weapon as it moved. Cylinders of pressurized gas were bolted at the base, cable winding up the turret like a cluster of serpents. When fired, the ’throwers sputtered and lurched about like violent drunkards, and were only a little more accurate.
“Ugly as a pack of copper-coin rent boys,” was the descriptor Kaori had chosen when she first laid eyes on them, and Kin had found it hard to disagree. But, unsightly as they might look, the test runs had gone well, pressure fluctuations aside. The forest in front of the ’thrower emplacement was shredded in a neat 180-degree arc—scrubs torn down to miserable stumps, saplings beheaded, bleeding rends torn through ancient trunks.
A half-dozen more of the emplacements were set up along the northwest of the village, the mountains and the pit traps funneling any potential approach from Black Temple into a relatively defensible zone. Kagé scouts still undertook dangerous patrols out in the wilds, but should it actually come to an attack, at least they wouldn’t have to fight hand to hand against a legion of twelve-foot pit demons.
Probably a good thing, since Yukiko isn’t here to help them this time …
Kin sighed, stomach turning, worry gnawing his insides as the memory of Yukiko’s lips set his heart to pounding. He knew Buruu would never let anything happen to her, but still, the fear of having no word, the ache of her absence …
The Kagé gathered around the ’thrower were clad in shades of autumn foliage, split-toed boots crunching in dead leaves. Most of the men eyed him with suspicion, the remainder with outright hostility. Sensei Ryusaki was the most senior figure present—a member of the Kagé military council, and a renowned swordmaster who had served under Daichi’s old command. The man had deeply tanned skin, a shaved skull and a long black moustache. He was missing his front teeth, compliments of a bar fight in his youth (in one of the few strained conversations they’d had, he’d warned Kin to beware of pretty girls with older brothers) and whistled through the gap almost constantly.
The captain stood, chin buttered with grease, pipe wrench in one hand, smiling at Old Mari. The old woman handed over her basket of food and promptly admonished the captain about eating properly.
Ryusaki glanced at Kin after receiving his dressing-down, narrowed a critical eye.