And they’re readying to fire.
The arrows are in the air the moment she recognizes them. Like a flock of birds in flight—there are so many, and from so many directions at once! Firing not just on her but on the army, too; not just on the army but on the Qorin as well—how are any of them meant to avoid such an assault?
She sucks in a breath. Solutions, not questions.
For now—she has to keep Sakura safe.
So Shizuka draws her mother’s sword. Two cuts sever ten arrows before they can reach her or her horse—but only on her right side. Three glance off her armor; two pierce through to her leg; one cuts across her forearm. Pain is a starburst between her eyes—and yet somehow she cannot truly feel the wounds yet.
There is no time, no time. So long as she is breathing, she can fight, and so long as she can fight, she must protect her family and army.
If the Qorin are afraid, they do not show it. Without any word from their commander, they break off into small groups, galloping into the woods with bows drawn. Only when both their horses’ front hooves leave the ground do they fire; their arrows punch through the shadow and land uselessly in the trees behind them.
Galloping horses, flying arrows—it is well and truly chaos now, well and truly a cacophony.
“Did they just—? Are you all right? Holy shit, are you all right?”
“Not now!”
Every movement strains her left leg. It’s starting to go numb, but that does not matter—if they can make it through this battle, there will be surgeons to mend her. If she can be mended. If not, well—she has always healed faster than usual.
At last she breaks from the Qorin; at last she nears the stretch between her and the Phoenix Guard. Her soldiers may not have faced the enemy before, but they are impeccably trained—when one lances a shadow, he digs in his heels and tries to lift it overhead. That his spear is then empty is no fault of his—but it does distract him, and then—
Shizuka curses. Not all the shadows have bows, but all of them are dangerous. She cannot tear herself away from watching: the shadow re-forms and swallows the soldier.
People are dying because of her.
Fear, guilt, shame—they pain her more than the arrows. Your fault, your fault, your fault. The puffed-up Empress dies with the soldier.
Only the girl remains.
Another wave of arrows. She can hardly raise her right arm in time to cut them down. Sakura yelps, covering her head with her arms, as if that will save her. Three shadows dash out from the woods, their hungry mouths open wide as a tiger’s. Again Shizuka raises her arm; again she makes her cut.
Her sword meets flesh and bone where she expects only mist. The shock reverberates through her shoulder—three shadowy heads hit the ashen earth.
She takes a breath. This is not the Kirin, and this army is not made of farmers who deserved better. The Qorin ride with her. Her wife rides with her.
Heaven rides with her.
Yet Shizuka is only one woman, and the enemy number in the thousands.
“Do not falter!” Shizuka calls, for she is among her army now, amid the melee of soldiers and shadows. Already there are bodies; already the air glimmers with departing souls.
Earlier she’d thought that loss of life was inevitable. Now that she is among it again, it is all that Shizuka can do to keep from crying.
What a fool she’d been to think she was hardy enough to be on the battlefield again, even so many years later.
Do not falter. She repeats it to herself under her breath, as if repeating it will make it true. Do not falter.
The shadows are closing in, but so is the army. As Shizuka takes her proper place among them, the lancers form a circle. She and Sakura sit atop Matsuda in the center. Another wave of shadows bursts forth from the forests.
“Steady!” she shouts, though her hands are anything but.
Like beetles, like serpents, like the bloated corpses that haunt her imagination—they are coming.
How many can she kill in one stroke? Shizuka does not know their names. Sky above, she does not know their names; the demons will be up again in a Bell at most. So many, so many, and how are they meant to fight in a forest?
Shizuka blinks, closes her eyes.
The pines give way to bamboo; the grit of the earth lies beneath a blanket of white snow. It is early in the winter, and her army has perfect faith in her. A capricious breeze tears the flowers from their stems. Softly they spiral down, down, red on white …
The memory is so vivid that she can feel the breeze against her cheeks, the winter chill. How cold her mask was in that forest! Her fingertips stuck to it when she reached for it then, and now—
Four sharp notes, played on a distant flute.
Shizuka’s blood goes cold. For one horrible moment she cannot breathe, cannot think—
She forces herself to open her eyes.
The shadows hang suspended in the air. Gone, their nebulous mass—they float like strips of paper, like shadow puppets. As if someone sucked the life out of them, as if …
She thinks of Shefali’s episodes, of her arm going flat as these shades, and something in her dies. To recognize her wife in these creatures …
She presses her eyes shut again. When she opens them—the paper shades are still there, still hanging motionless before them. The nearest one is frozen with three of its four arms extended. Two spears pierce through its chest, and through these holes the unnatural sunlight pours down upon the soldiers.
The confusion lasts only an instant. These soldiers are trained to endure horror, even if their general’s throat is sealed shut in fear. As one, they raise their catches high; as one, they impale them; as one, they slam them down upon the earth.
“General! Your orders?” shouts one of the lieutenants. A brash young woman, her voice full of fire. How excited she sounds to have killed the enemy. The answer she expects to hear is “kill them all.”
But that is not the answer the Phoenix Empress can give.
Not now. Not when the flute is playing that melody, the one from the bay of Nishikomi. Its lilting tune is like grinding glass between her teeth. Hackles rise at the back of her neck.
Her eyes dart around the forest. Nothing but black, nothing but shades and trees and death, nothing but her failures coming back in new armor—
There. Balanced on a wooden sandal with only one block to support it, standing atop the tallest tree in this forsaken forest, flute to his lips—the demon.
Shizuka’s mind is just as much a battlefield as her surroundings. A company of fear charges, lances lowered, at the cavalry of her wrath. Her jaw aches; she can hear her blood echoing in her ears.
“You,” she snarls. It is the only word she can manage. Anger and fury trample the lancers underfoot—she raises her sword and levels it at the demon. And then, finally—“All archers, fire!”
The creak of a thousand bows at once—like a massive creature howling awake. Arrows fly—but Hokkaran bows are built for distance, and not altitude; they have no true hope of reaching the demon.
And less, when the demon brushes them away. A gust of wind follows the gesture, scattering the arrows like autumn leaves. Only then does it lower the flute from its lips; only then does Shizuka see its wicked grin.
The demon is wearing the man’s head today, with its thick, bulbous nose. Had it taken this body from a wrestler? For it is wide at the shoulders, and barrel chested; its torso is thick as the tree it rests upon. Long, dark hair kept tied back in a warrior’s horsetail; brows that speak of determination—were it not for the demon’s nose, it would be sure to win the hearts of love-starved noblewomen everywhere.
That smile. Shizuka hates it already.
“Four-Petal,” it says, “is this any way to treat a man who has twice saved your life?”
Sakura swears under her breath. “So it is him.”
Hearing her cousin’s voice cuts through some of her anger, but not all. Much as she wants to jump off this horse and dem
and a duel, she cannot. The demon is not likely to accept, for one thing; she cannot leave her cousin’s side, for another. If Sakura comes to any harm during this journey, Shizuka will never be able to forgive herself.
Yet she cannot tolerate the demon speaking to her in such a way. Four-Petal. At last the name makes sense to her—all this time, they’ve been taunting her. A flower, true—but one under the Traitor’s sway. Four. They knew what stained her blood; they knew the cost of the jade she so proudly claimed.
“You’ve saved nothing,” Shizuka says. “How can you claim to be saving me when it was you who set these demons upon us? You who cast me into the water—do not speak to me in such a familiar tone.”
The Phoenix Empress speaks as formally as she can, using pronouns and articles considered obsolete by most—in this way, she sets the distance between them. In this way, she dares it to try to close that distance.
But what will she do if it does? It is atop that tree, and she is far beneath it, on her horse.
The demon laughs. It claps its hands once, and all its paper underlings start spinning as if a child is rolling their string between her fingers. With a single yank, the paper demons go flying toward it, settling like Poem-War cards onto its outstretched palm.
“There,” it says. “Are you feeling safer now, Four-Petal?”
It laughs once more. The whole army around her stiffens; Shizuka hears their footsteps and the rattle of their armor. Munenori is cutting through the crowd on his way toward her. This is the terrible thing about war masks—she cannot see his expression.
And yet—why is it that she still hears the sounds of battle? She glances to her right, where the trees are thickest, but her war mask blinds her.
“Sakura,” she whispers, for the demon is so high up that it cannot possibly hear her, and it cannot see her mouth moving. “Sakura, are they all gone?”
The Sister is the goddess of music, the hearth, and friendship—Sakura’s always claimed her as a patron and used her pronouns. It is the Fourth who is the god of cleverness and deceit. Still, there is a saying: A singing girl can make the bitterest lie into the sweetest dreams. Sakura must have learned that from her fellows, for she quickly hides her mouth with her fan. How natural she makes it seem, to be fanning yourself on the battlefield! As if the stress has broken her spirit and she might, at any time, depart to the floating world.
“The Qorin are still fighting,” says Sakura. Is she slurring her words more than usual on purpose? She must be; Shizuka’s never known her cousin to sound like such a drunkard.
But it is the substance of her words that chills Shizuka to the core. The Qorin are still fighting. If she turns to look, the demon will know she is worried. She cannot let it have that power over her.
And yet Shefali is there in the woods, somewhere, fighting.…
Shizuka’s throat is closing up again. This, too, is unacceptable.
“Well?” says the demon. It crosses one leg over the other and sits as if on some invisible bench. “I am not a patient soul to begin with, and after all the trouble I went through to set things up for you—”
“To kill my soldiers?” Shizuka says. Anger, yes, the anger will free her. “To threaten my people, to bring such pain and misery to my wife and her family—you call this ‘setting things up for me’?”
It tilts its head. “Yes,” it says. “Wouldn’t you? We’re talking now, the two of us.”
Petulant. A child tugging on a mother’s sleeve, demanding that she pay attention to a sand-drawing.
“I didn’t expect him to be so fucking annoying,” says Sakura. Maybe there isn’t much difference between talking over rowdy sailors and an army at war—she has no trouble making herself heard. “All the stories say big-nosed types like him are arrogant.”
Perhaps this was arrogance, in a way. No one in Hokkaro knew more of arrogance than Minami Shizuka. If she were in the demon’s place, she’d be throwing a tantrum that her victim wasn’t listening. That’s what she’d done plenty of times before. Well, that and challenge people to duels—
Hm.
The Qorin are still fighting, and the demon wants her to listen.
“General,” says Munenori, “the army is ready. To treat with this creature is to invite disaster. Now is the time for decisive action—”
“I’m aware,” Shizuka says.
Burqila Alshara said one must always greet an army while mounted. If she saw Shizuka hopping off her horse to talk to a demon, her brown face would go red with rage. It is a good thing, then, that Burqila is so preoccupied with her own people and their fighting across the fog.
Shizuka does not hop out of the saddle; her injury makes it impossible. Instead, she lowers herself slowly onto the ground. Arrows sink their teeth farther in; blood wells out and soaks her riding pants. When at last she touches the ground, it sends a wave of pain shooting up into her; for a moment, her mind goes red. If she hadn’t thought to hold on to Matsuda with her right hand, she would have staggered over.
And yet even this pain is a small fraction of what her wife deals with every day.
She thinks of Shefali, trapped in the woods with the shadows that could not die, and steels herself. Pain is temporary.
“General—”
“Don’t,” Shizuka says. Her voice is a blade. “Whatever happens, I need the two of you to pay attention. This will work, but if it doesn’t, then you need to remember.”
Sakura nods. Munenori bites down on whatever it was he was going to advise her to do.
A good thing, because there is no way he’d approve of what she’s planning.
Shizuka grips one of the arrow shafts in her leg and yanks. Blood flies, red as fruit, from the wound. The world is starting to teeter, but the demon does not need to know that.
The demon needs to know that she is unbreakable.
And so Shizuka calls on the fires burning deep in her soul. She stokes them with her anger, with her worry, with her shame, until they threaten to immolate her. Only when the tips of her fingers glow like a smith’s tongs does she know she is ready.
She jams her thumb into the wound.
The pain.
Biting down on her tongue is almost enough to make her bite it off. The taste of copper fills her mouth; her whole body shudders, and she struggles to breathe.
But Shizuka keeps her eyes on the demon as she cauterizes her own wounds. Steadfast and unyielding. A nation, and not a woman—a god.
“You wanted to talk?” Shizuka says. “Come down and talk. Unless you’re afraid of me?”
The demon leans back, arms crossed behind its head. Its robes open to reveal more of its torso.
“Four-Petal,” it says. “Do you think I’m a two-bu villain? I won’t. The Eternal King has a generous offer for you—one that boggles my mind, if I am being honest with you. Here I am thinking perhaps we can put all of this—” He gestures broadly toward the army. “—behind us, and here you are acting the same as you always have.”
What is more painful—snapping the second shaft and cauterizing the wound; or knowing that the demon is right?
She takes another step forward. Sakura sucks at her teeth.
“I won’t hear your offer until you withdraw your…”
“My cards?” the demon offers. It tuts, as if she has asked it to sit properly at dinner. “I’ve removed them from your army.”
“They are still attacking the Qorin,” Shizuka says. Seething, the words leave her—she allows her pain to color her tone. “Remove them, and I may listen.”
The demon leans forward, head perched on its hand. “Why?” it says. “They aren’t your people. A phoenix need not concern herself with rabid wolves.”
Shizuka wishes Shefali were here—her bow is strong enough to hit the demon. Two arrows in each eye and a fifth in its throat, that is what it deserves.
Sky, she hopes her wife is safe. What horrors have beset her? Though Shefali cannot die until the first of Qurukai, she can be injured—and her great foolis
h love won’t hesitate to throw herself in harm’s way for her family. The number of scars on her … Shefali has not told Shizuka much of what she did during her travels, but some of the stories are plain to see.
Stories best left unspoken.
Her brave warrior—how many more scars will she earn today?
“They are my family,” Shizuka says, “and so long as they are my wife’s people, they are mine as well. Leave them be, or return empty-handed to your master. I refuse to listen to you otherwise.”
It is difficult to see from here if the demon is narrowing its eyes. In the silence that follows, Shizuka tries to get a better sense of it, to spot the golden characters of its name. Something gold gleams on the inside of its right forearm. She will need the demon to come closer if she’s going to get a good look.
Come down, she thinks, as if it might somehow hear her. Come down and let me show you how bright a phoenix burns.
So quiet has it gone around her that she can hear the clattering of the Qorin’s hooves, hear the shouts and the horns and the drums they use to frighten their enemies. Shadows know no fear—but that does not stop the Qorin from trying. Somewhere in that cacophony is Shefali. Somewhere in that cacophony, a death cry—one of the last Qorin leaves to join their ancestors in the sky.
They cannot continue to sustain losses. Only one-third of them remained in Hokkaro—they cannot die here.
And yet they might, if Shizuka fails to convince this demon to let them go. To send her own army would be a fool’s errand; the shadows will not be harmed by mortal weapons. Perhaps if she had time, she might properly bless their spears—why had she not thought to do this?—but there is no time now.
Every second that passes, another life is snuffed out.
How much longer can she bear that knowledge? How much longer can she pretend she does not care? Even the strongest steel will snap if improperly handled.
Shizuka grits her teeth. “Answer me!” she shouts. “Will you retreat, or must I cut you down myself?”
The Warrior Moon Page 23