Page 36 of Night of the Dragon

I took a deep breath, though I knew we couldn’t relax yet. With the gate breached, the demons would be swarming the city. I had to return to the palace to help Yumeko and the others, but there was one small matter here that required attention.

“Well done, demonslayer. Or, should I say Hakaimono now?”

“Why is the Shadow Clan here?” I growled, turning as Kage Ichiro appeared on a section of wall behind me. Around us, I could sense movement, flashes and blurs in the darkness, and I knew I was surrounded by shinobi. “Did Hanshou order this? How did you even get here—the Path of Shadows can be walked by only a few at a time.”

“For a normal Shadow mage, yes,” said a soft, instantly recognizable voice. I bristled, and my vision flooded with red. “But for one who has been practicing this art for a few centuries, we have uncovered a few secrets over the years. It’s been a long time... Hakaimono.”

I looked across the corpse of the dead Akumu, and Lady Hanshou herself smiled at me over the battlefield.

19

The Barrier Falls

Yumeko

The courtyard was turning into a bloodbath.

The Orochi roared as it stomped toward us, crushing samurai under its claws, flinging them aside with its multiple heads. On either side of the monster, the scorpion twins slashed and whirled in a deadly, graceful dance, beheading samurai or cutting them apart with their spinning chains. Demons and yokai flung themselves at the humans, tearing into them even as their own numbers were cut apart with swords, spears or arrows. Everything was pure pandemonium, but despite the valiant efforts of the samurai, the Orochi and the scorpion twins drew ever closer to the palace, the miko standing at the top of the steps and the daimyo within her circle of majutsushi.

“Okame!” I cried, but the ronin was already striding forward, raising his bow, and the first arrow slammed into the chest of a minor oni, toppling it backward. The second pierced the throat of an amanjaku, while the third struck the forehead of a doglike yokai with the face of an old man. As they shrieked and collapsed, three of the Orochi’s heads turned toward the steps, eyes narrowing as they spotted us.

I reached behind me, grabbed a handful of chrysanthemum leaves from the bushes growing beside the door and hurried to join Okame at the top of the steps. He glanced over, met my gaze with a smile and a nod and turned toward the enemy as I released a surge of fox magic into the courtyard.

Dozens more samurai appeared, exploding into existence with small puffs of smoke, and rushed the demon army with unified battle cries. Startled, the hoard turned to face this new threat, giving the real warriors time to regroup. The Orochi snarled in rage, sending its heads down to bite at the newcomers, shredding illusions and slicing through them with its tails. But for each illusion the monsters destroyed, I added two more to the battle, tossing leaves into the air and filling the courtyard with fox magic.

As Okame continued to rain down arrows and I continued to bolster the samurai army with illusions, one of the scorpion twins looked up and met my gaze over the carnage. Her eyes narrowed, and she leaped onto the Orochi’s back, then stood up and swept her arm over the mass of demons.

“We’re fighting illusions!” she cried, and pointed at me with a long black fingernail. “It’s the kitsune! Kill the fox, and the shadows will vanish. Orochi, destroy her!”

With a roar, the Orochi reared up, four of its jaws opening and breathing a wave of fire at the top of the steps. I cringed back as the inferno howled toward me, but before the flames could get close, they slammed into a wall of magic that flared blue-white between us. The fire sputtered out, and a few steps away, Reika winced, her brow furrowed in concentration. The few demons that made it past the samurai and Okame’s arrows hurled themselves up the steps but they, too, hit the barrier of holy magic and were flung back, though each time they did, Reika would shudder as she fought to maintain her hold on the wall.

I flung out a hand, and a trio of Yumekos appeared to surround me. “Okame!” I cried, tossing a pair of illusionary ronin into the fray, as well. “We have to take down the Orochi! If it gets up here, Reika won’t be able to hold it back.”

“Don’t ask for much, do you?” the ronin gritted out, but he turned his bow on the massive creature still making its way across the courtyard, snapping and crushing the samurai around it. He loosed an arrow that hit the Orochi right in the chest, but the monster didn’t even notice it.

“The heads, Okame,” I gasped at the ronin. “It’s too big to hurt directly, but cut off the heads, and maybe the body will die.”

The Orochi was very close now, a writhing, unstoppable force just a few yards away. As it reached the first step, an arrow sped through the air, and a head that had been rearing back to breathe flame spasmed as the dart slammed between its jaws and pierced its throat.

As the neck fell limply to the monster’s side, a shout of triumph arose from the remaining samurai in the courtyard. Perhaps seeing that the creature could be hurt, after all, they surged forward with renewed effort, blades rising and falling through the demon ranks. One warrior, standing his ground as a head snaked down at him, slashed at it viciously and managed to strike the Orochi’s neck. The head reared up with a scream, half-severed from its body, spilling bright red blood over the stones as it thrashed.

Another gout of flame came at me, again sputtering out against Reika’s barrier, and a demon snarled as it bounced off and tumbled down the steps. Reika gasped, and I spared a split-second glance at Tsuki-sama and the mages, desperately hoping they were almost done. We couldn’t keep this up much longer.

A chill slithered up my spine, and the hairs on my neck rose. I turned, just as the scorpion twin on the Orochi’s back raised her arm, dark metal glinting between her fingers, and hurled it at Okame. The black, razor-edged throwing dagger, the kind I’d sometimes seen Tatsumi use, flashed through the barrier and struck the ronin in the chest. He staggered back with a strangled gasp, dropped his bow and exploded into a cloud of white smoke as the yokai’s slitted eyes met mine through the barrier. Her lips curled into a cruel smile as she raised her arm once more.

I flinched as that arm came down, the dagger blinking from her fingers in a dark blur. I felt the wind from its passing as it missed my head by inches, zipping past me, and struck the shrine maiden in the chest.

Reika jerked with a gasp, sleeves billowing around her, and staggered back. One hand clutched at her heart, but the other still remained before her face, maintaining concentration even as the barrier flickered and sputtered like a candle in a wind. She swayed, clenching her jaw, and dropped to one knee, as crimson spread over her spotless white haori and spattered the stones beneath.

Reika-san!

Something inside me snapped. The ball of light that had been a low, continuous flicker in the pit of my stomach exploded, flaring up and out, expanding through my veins, my skin, erupting all around me. I screamed my rage at the demons swarming up the steps and sent a column of foxfire roaring through their ranks.

The blue-white flames howled, flaring hungrily as they engulfed the demons, and screams began rising into the air as the kitsune-bi consumed them. The ones that the flames touched first had just enough time to shriek before twisting into smoke and vanishing on the wind. Baring my teeth, I walked to the edge of the steps, foxfire blazing and snapping around me, and sent tendrils of fire cutting through my enemies like a kama through rice. Yokai wailed in pain, demons shrieked as they were sent back to Jigoku, and euphoric rage rushed through my veins as I seared through everything in my path.

At the bottom of the steps, the huge Orochi snorted, pausing in surprise as a flaming kitsune glared up at it, but then its remaining heads gave angry hisses and reared back to strike. The scorpion yokai on its back narrowed her eyes as our gazes met once more, and raised an arm, the lethal dagger ready to fly at me.

An arrow streaked from nowhere, striking her in the chest. Her yellow eyes widened in shock as from the corner of my eye, I saw Okame, jaw clenched and teeth bared, put another arrow to his string, before the second dart struck the yokai in the throat and punched out the other side.

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