by Anna Frost
Good momentum and a push of inhuman strength was all it took to grab the saddle and swing his feet up to kick the rider off. The woman fell, and he was left in a strange position, hanging off the side of the horse with a handhold on the saddle and a leg over it. The saddle was beginning to shift sideways under his weight. Grabbing a fistful of the horse’s mane with his free hand, he hauled himself astride.
So much for not straining his sore shoulder. It was a good thing he couldn’t pick out individual pains anymore.
Ahead, the first rider had just disappeared into the forest. Akakiba was soon in the woods too, branches slapping and scratching his exposed, acid-burned face.
He strained to locate Yuki and his pursuer, but he could hear nothing but the rush of blood in his ears. His sight, too, was going, lost behind a crimson veil. Perhaps it was time to let go of his angry guest? No, he could hold on longer. Just a little more…
His spooked mount ran straight past another horse and kept going.
He felt himself slide off and fall to the ground. There was no pain, only a dull pounding throughout his body. The remains of his mental faculties agreed this was not a good sign. He let go of his metaphysical grip on the demon and ejected it from his body as a drowning man expels water from his lungs.
The pain lessened so suddenly that he could have cried in sheer relief. Sound returned to him and sight in some measure. He laid on his back, dazed and weak, and watched a wispy black thing rise in the air and vanish. Stupid demon.
Footsteps approached. “Akakiba?” Yuki was keeping his distance, eyeing him.
“You kicked me in the face,” he said accusingly. “Is that how you respect your teacher?”
“Your aura was weird. It’s a bit better now. What happened? Was it a demon on you?”
“In me. It escaped.”
“Ah? Aren’t you the one who escaped?” Seemingly having made up his mind that it was safe, Yuki tried to help him up. “We have to go. There’ll be more looking for us.”
“Go on. I can’t walk.” Staying conscious felt like an achievement. “You have to tell the clan—”
“Tell them yourself. Come on.” Yuki had pulled his arm over his shoulders and now struggled to keep them both upright. They stumbled forward like drunken friends.
The baby dragon peeked out of its hiding place and looked at Akakiba as if wondering whether it should spit in his face again.
“People are coming on foot.” His keen hearing had been restored, but he couldn’t say the same about his sight: the world spun alarmingly. “Leave me.”
“Don’t argue. Walk.”
At this speed, they wouldn’t outrun a turtle. He had to do something. “I suppose there’s no reason…They already know, why shouldn’t you? Don’t panic.”
He let go of everything. Reality shifted, and he was no longer human. He was small, furry, and red.
“I thought Jien was jesting,” Yuki said, eyes widening.
“What? What did he tell you?”
“It’s amazing. How—” Yuki shook his head hard and looked over his shoulder. “Ah, this isn’t the time!” He ran onward, clutching a fox to his chest.
They reached the river safely, pursuit vanishing as if by magic. Yuki well nearly thrust his entire head in the water, drinking in gulps. Akakiba stiffly crawled over and did literally put his head under, hoping to remove the blood before it matted his fur.
“Hey!” Yuki stared at the river. “The baby jumped in! I thought he couldn’t live underwater yet?”
“He can still swim a little. Maybe it wants us to follow. We should cross the river in any case. If they left Kaze behind, he’s on the other side.”
“How do you do that?” Yuki said, looking bemused as he held a hand against his ear.
“Do what?”
“Talk in my head!”
“You’ve just learned that I’m a person who can turn into a fox, and you’re concerned because I can mind-talk? How should I know how I do it? It’s a natural ability.”
“So, your family?”
“Yes.”
“Your clan?”
“Yes.”
“The rabbit meat…”
“Yes.”
At that moment, the baby dragon returned. It didn’t return alone.
The great dragon surfaced noisily. “Have you found them, fox child?”
“Yes. We killed several, but there are many more. They’re assembling a demon army.”
“Demons do not work together.”
“They do now. They’re possessing humans and preparing an army. We must return to my clan as fast as we can to gather reinforcements.”
“They must pay for crushing my eggs. Come.”
Yuki hesitated only a moment before picking Akakiba up and climbing on the dragon’s scaled back. It was humiliating to be carried by one’s apprentice, but he needed rest more than he needed pride. If he couldn’t recover sufficiently, they wouldn’t allow him to come back and fight with the rest of the clan. He’d be forced to disobey. Again.
The baby dragon climbed back to its preferred nest on Yuki’s head and emitted a tiny snorting noise that it probably thought was quite fierce.
The mother dragon dove forward without warning, forcing Yuki to grab one of the horns to steady himself. She kept her head just above the surface, allowing them to breathe. Her powerful muscles propelled her body forward as fast as a horse could go.
A horse’s whinnying caught Akakiba’s attention. Kaze was galloping along the riverside, keeping up with them. He shook his mane, perhaps in excitement or perhaps in challenge.
“Go home.”
Kaze ran on. For a time, horse and dragon were evenly matched. The sound of hoofs battering the earth and the splashing of water covered all other sounds. But the old dragon was not done accelerating. She soon left the horse behind.
Nobody had ever measured the maximum swimming speed of an adult dragon. They were known to be strong swimmers—some of them even lived in the sea—but they usually dwelled at the bottom of the water with no reason to race along at the surface.
The water displaced by the dragon created waves that crashed on either sides of the river. Wildlife fled at their approach: fishing birds, drinking deer, especially fish—some of which were snapped up as a snack as the dragon passed. Trees flashed by at a dizzying speed.
They halted when another great dragon reared above the water. Its brighter coloring proclaimed it was a male. “This is my territory!”
“Demons crushed our eggs,” the old mother reported. “They’re gathering an army to kill us and crush all our eggs.”
“Our eggs, crushed? How dare they!” The male hissed low. “Show me where they are!”
“They have an army on land. Bring the fox child to his own. They will come. They will kill the demons and protect our eggs.”
The male took them on his broad back and showed them how fast a younger dragon could go. By the time they reached the next dragon’s territory, Akakiba’s fur was drenched flat against his body.
The scenario played itself again and again. The mention of eggs crushed by demons, and the possibility of a demon army gathering to destroy their precious eggs, angered the creatures. A succession of great dragons took them further and further west.
Yuki and he were both shivering, huddled together to share warmth.
Yuki’s fingers began scratching behind his fox ears. He pretended not to notice. Saying something about it would be awkward, and, besides, it felt nice. It was good to know he could still register pleasant feelings when everything inside throbbed painfully. He curled up tighter on Yuki’s lap and tried to ignore Jien’s phantom voice in his head, “It’s not kind to lead him on.”
But this wasn’t “leading him on.” Yuki surely had no idea how embarrassingly intimate it felt to be scratched behind the ears. Nobody had touched him like that since he’d been a fluffy little kit. If he didn’t say anything, maybe Yuki would keep scratching, keep making him a little less miserable�
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To his great shame, he fell prey to exhaustion, later waking to find the sun had risen.
They were lucky: the river led towards the clan house. There were detours, but at the speed they were traveling, it mattered not. They sped through forests, villages, and rice fields. Stunned villagers watched them pass, children squealing.
When they stepped off the last dragon’s back, cold and starving, they were but half a day’s walk from the clan house.
Akakiba was in human shape once again, pushed to it by pride. He set about dragging his sorry self onward.
“I seem to recall someone telling me not to be too proud to accept help when I was wounded,” Yuki said. He was barefoot, his sandals lost in the river.
“It was only psychic damage,” he lied. “I’m over the shock.” He hid his shaking hands in his soggy sleeves. “You hardly look better than I do.” That was truth: Yuki’s red-rimmed eyes and unsteady footsteps proved he hadn’t had any sleep.
Following his nose, he found a restaurant. There were stares, for it was a sunny day and they looked like they had fallen in the river and been savaged by a dragon. It was close enough to the truth. Warm sake was ordered, along with obscene quantities of miso soup, fish, and rice balls.
“Shouldn’t we have gone to the clan house immediately?” Yuki asked guiltily, staring at the laden plates a serving girl set before them. “To warn them?”
“Feeding us won’t be their priority when we get there.”
They set upon the food like the starving men they were. Occasionally, Yuki would raise his chopsticks to offer a piece of raw fish to his hair.
When they were done eating, Akakiba dropped coins on the table and stepped outside, feeling slightly less dead. He commandeered the first horse he saw by grabbing and removing its modestly dressed rider. The man seemed torn, certainly wishing to protest but wary of men with swords, especially men with swords who wanted something of his.
Removing his katana, he gave it to the man. “Bring this to the Fox clan house, and you will receive two gold coins.” The man bowed low and clutched the sword as they left. Akakiba hardly cared if it wasn’t brought back, but he’d have to remember to notify the guards about his promise in case it was.
It was in such a state that they arrived: wet all over, mounted on an old, ugly horse, he missing a sword and Yuki both sandals. The men on guard duty let them through without questions when they said they had urgent news.
What happened next was fuzzy in his mind, the accumulation of pain and lack of sleep fogging the world and rendering his limbs heavy as metal. They were brought inside and given dry clothes. They told their story several times, starting over each time new people arrived. He had to be forceful to make them believe he was not delirious.
“I don’t care if you think it’s impossible,” he snarled. “All of them are possessed! They tried to make me one of theirs! Yuki saw them too.”
“What did you see, boy?” the clan head asked.
Everybody’s attention shifted to the single human present, who did not seem to appreciate the sudden attention. “I could see a light around everybody, like…” He paused, rubbing his exhaustion-reddened eyes. “Like it was leaking from them at the edges. Jien said I was seeing their auras. There were dark spots on them. When Akakiba returned, his aura had spots too. But when the demon left, the spots got dimmer. I can’t see them anymore.”
It was Maru the healer who saved them, stepping forward to interrupt. “Jien and Aito should arrive shortly, as I’m certain they’re riding as hard as they can. You can question them when they do. I’m taking my patients away. Can’t you see they’re swaying? They need to be in bed.”
After the clan head, Maru had the most authority. What he said, was done.
Chapter Thirteen
Akakiba
AKAKIBA SLEPT LIKE THE DEAD but, unlike the dead, he eventually woke up. The first thing he noticed was the sweet smell of grilled meat wafting from a tray by the door. He was alone in the room, but there was a rolled futon nearby, which must have been Yuki’s. A traditional pair of swords—one long and one short—waited. They were his own, returned from wherever they had awaited his arrival.
How much time had passed while he laid unconscious? It was daytime now, birdsongs and sunlight filtering through the rice paper door, and his stomach was insisting he investigate the delicious scents coming from the tray.
He rose stiffly, muscles screaming at being put back to work, and devoured the food. It was cold, a sign it had waited there some time, but he’d have eaten it even if it were half-rotten.
These rooms, meant to accommodate samurai who did not live at the clan house in permanence, usually contained certain important objects, such as combs, hair ribbons, and sharpening tools. He combed out his hair and was surprised to find few knots, for it had been a wet and matted mess when he had gone to bed. It could have been his mother’s doing, or Yuki’s. He wasn’t certain which possibility would be the least embarrassing.
He put his hair up in its usual ponytail, leaving only his bangs free, and dressed with the clean clothes left out for his use. He inspected his face in a palm-size mirror. The acid marks had faded, proof that he had recovered well: serious injuries would have gotten priority over cosmetic details like the burns.
Ready to face the world, Akakiba slid the door aside and stepped onto the veranda to fill his lungs with fresh air.
A passing fox greeted him with a nod, and he bowed in answer. Its appearance, that of a sickly old thing with thin fur, made it easy to recognize Naoko, the clan’s eldest living member. Few knew her true age, and of those, none would tell.
“Ah, child, it is good to see you on your feet again. Your sister worried.”
“How long has it been, Grandmother?”
“You have been in a healing trance for an entire day.”
A healing trance was a form of sleep so profound the sleeper could not be awakened, because his body’s entire strength was focused on repairing physical damage. It was the reason samurai of the Fox clan often recovered from injuries that would have been debilitating for a human. However, it was not all-powerful: it could restore neither Maru’s missing leg nor his mother’s destroyed ankle.
If he’d been out of it for an entire day, it meant the demon had done severe damage to his insides. If he hadn’t gone into the trance when he had, he might have died from internal bleeding. The thought was sobering.
“Grandmother, have you seen Yuki? My human companion?”
“I expect you will find him with Sanae. She drafted him into practice sessions. She is quite excited about the battle. The red-haired ones are always so eager…”
“Thank you, Grandmother.” With another bow he went on his way.
How could he have forgotten? Having successfully undergone her first kill, Sanae was now considered a hunter. If the clan went to fight the demon-possessed, she had the right to participate. She, who had never killed a human being and had no experience of battlegrounds, might become one of the first casualties if she were allowed to join.
He strode to the dojo, intent on giving his sister a good talking-to, but did not find her there. He checked the bathhouse, ducking into the male side. There, he found Sanae and Yuki soaking and chatting.
“Brother, you’re awake!” Sanae rose from the water, displaying a flat and utterly male body.
“You told him,” Akakiba accused.
“I had to. He wouldn’t stop saying he couldn’t fight a girl. Isn’t that a terrible excuse? I’m only a girl when I want to be.” Sanae turned. “Hey, Yuki, do you want to see me shift female right now?” She laughed as the human turned crimson.
“You’re terrible,” Yuki said.
“You’re too easy.” Sanae beckoned enthusiastically. “Come on in, Brother. We have the place to ourselves! Everyone is running around panicking or planning or both. I don’t know how the Great Temples’ monks send messages, but it works fast. They said they’ll send fifty men so we need to wait for
them to arrive. There was something about the emperor, but I stopped listening.”
“The emperor replied to the letter inquiring whose army Aito had stumbled upon,” Yuki filled in. “He said he has no idea who they are and that the clan has free reign to handle them appropriately.”
“I see.” Having undressed, Akakiba began vigorously scrubbing his body. “That’s good, considering what we found out about them.”
When his skin was clean and pink, he poured a bucket of cold water over his head to clear the foam. Finally clean, he settled in the bath with the others. The prickling sensation of extremely hot water was delectable, and he couldn’t keep back a groan of bliss.
He eyed his sister. “Is there anything else I should know? Did you tell Yuki all our secrets?”
“Not all. But if you want me to…”
“Oh, be quiet. Yuki, any news of Jien and Aito?”
“They’re expected any time now.”
“I’ll enjoy seeing the look on Jien’s face when he learns we arrived first.”
“Oh, oh,” Sanae said, splashing closer to grab his arm. “Brother, you have to see the swords Mother and Father gave me. They’re gorgeous! They said they special-ordered this one from Jien’s temple so they could get the blade inscribed like they wanted. I’ve been practicing with the katana, and its balance is amazing. I can’t wait to use it for real!”
It reminded Akakiba that he hadn’t come here to relax. There was a war brewing, and he didn’t want his baby sister involved. Despite the form she was currently using, she’d been born a female fox, and usually presented herself as a female human. It was natural for a fox to prefer their birth gender, although clan rules dictated that wandering samurai must always appear male.
He’d yet to decide how to broach the subject when Sanae stepped out of the bath and headed for the door, saying, “I’ll go see if Jien’s been sighted yet. You two work out whatever it is Yuki’s been moping about, okay?”