“Thanks,” Toshi said, “but that’s not necessary. No offense, but I think Kobo could eat the lot of you for breakfast and still be hungry. We’ll take our chances on our own.”

  The fox party seemed relieved by Toshi’s announcement, but also offended by his reasoning. Part of him wanted to dig a little deeper, find out why this odd little group was delving so deep into the forest. Their adventure might be profitable to a pair of rough-and-tumble hyozan reckoners, if it wouldn’t take too much time away from their pointless quest to find monks in the forest.

  He rejected the idea of tailing them when the smallest of the kitsune, the unarmed male, said, “And you? Have you seen any snakes?”

  Pearl-Ear swatted the little male with the back of her hand. The samurai grew tense while they waited for Toshi to respond. Interesting, he thought. But ultimately, not compelling.

  “No,” he said. “And I intend to keep it that way. If you are headed for orochi country, I wish you luck. You couldn’t drag me there at swordpoint.”

  The little male shrugged. “We are forest folk,” he said breezily. “We are not afraid.”

  Toshi pointed at the wizard boy. “He is.”

  The white-haired student reacted as if struck. “What did you say, lowlife?”

  “Choryu,” the student girl/possible bodyguard warned.

  “I said you look as if you’re about to foul yourself,” Toshi said. “Or perhaps you already have. Good luck with the snakes, snow-cap. I hear they love the taste of soft muscles, unspoiled by hard work.”

  The boy rose, blue light flickering in his eyes. He opened his hands, but before he could do more, two of the fox samurai appeared, one on each side.

  “We don’t have time for this,” one said.

  “Why are you defending him? Look at the big one! He’s dressed like a budoka monk, but he can’t find any others? How do we know he’s not leading us into an orochi-bito ambush?”

  Toshi watched in mild amusement as Choryu the boy wizard’s cheeks colored. Excitable fellow, he thought. Must have been spoiling for a fight.

  “Settle down,” a fox said. “He said he was going. Just sit still until he’s gone.”

  Choryu was still struggling, almost frothy. “No mere ochimusha filth can talk to me that way.”

  “This one does.” Toshi smiled. “No offense, foxes and ladies, but your friend here is one short push away from panicking. Cut him loose before he drags you down.”

  “Not a bad idea,” muttered the fox on the boy’s left. Toshi waggled his eyebrows at him as the wizard fumed.

  “Sir,” the fox woman said. “You are abusing our hospitality.”

  “Not at all. I’m abusing that cowardly streak of piss over there.”

  “I may be frightened,” the wizard flared. “But at least I’m going. One mention of orochi-bito and you’re ready to rabbit. You’re just wandering bits of trash that gets blown about by the wind. Why don’t you and that bloated, tree-hugging freak blow away now and leave us alone?”

  Toshi’s eye flicked over to Kobo, seated on the ground with his back against a sturdy tree. He looked back at Choryu and grinned.

  “You’re even dumber than you look. And with that hairstyle, that’s not easy.”

  Toshi stepped back as Kobo set aside his meal and rose to his full height. He wrapped one meaty hand around the other clenched fist and squeezed until all his knuckles cracked. The muscles in his arms and shoulders bulged.

  “Did you say something to me and my oath-brother?” Kobo asked quietly. “Little man?”

  Toshi could tell that the kitsune did not want this to turn in to a fight, especially not over the boy wizard. But all he had to do was clear his throat and Kobo would pounce. Toshi paused, drinking in the delicious pre-brawl tension.

  “Stop this.” The knockout in white stepped in between the newcomers and her own party. Toshi liked the way her hair fell across her shoulders, and the starry sparkle in her strange, bright eyes.

  “It’s hard enough to survive in this wild and unfamiliar place,” she said. “Without us all trying to kill each other. Why don’t we all just part company now and go our own ways?”

  “Ann, she’s right,” Toshi said. He nudged Kobo and said, “Let it go.”

  The huge youth grunted and slid back down against his tree. “I’m not done eating.” As Kobo settled into the loose soil, the kitsune relaxed their grip on their swords.

  “You know,” Toshi said casually, “you really are heading the wrong way. The orochi aren’t as friendly as I am, if the tales are true. Unless you’ve got something they want, they’ll probably just skin you alive and prop you up as a warning. You’ve been so kind to us, I’d hate to think of that happening to you.” He leaned around the pretty girl and made eye contact with the boy wizard. “You, I hope they get.”

  Choryu merely grumbled and gestured dismissively.

  “Listen, friend,” the unarmed fox-man said. “Actually, we’re not friends and we don’t have to be. But we don’t have to be enemies, either. If you keep needling the grumpy members of our troop, we’re never going to be free of each other.”

  “Troupe? So you’re performers, then?”

  “You could say that. Every one of us has a role to play,” the fox-man said. His eyes twinkled. “What about you?”

  “Me? I’m an independent operator. Right now, I’m partnered with him,” he tilted his head at Kobo. “It’s an arrangement that suits us both.”

  “Independents are very rare these days. So you’re, what … searching for his budoka brothers? What happened, was he expelled?”

  Toshi blinked. The little one was sharp. “Not really. He took a better job.”

  The fox-man made a high-pitched whistling sound. “Oooh, they hate that,” he said. “Are you sure you’re looking for them and not the other way around?”

  “Tell you what,” Toshi said. “If you find any monks, send them our way. We’ll do the same with the orochi. Let’s see who lives longer.”

  “That’s no fun,” the fox countered. “How will we tell who won?”

  Now Pearl-Ear stepped in between the groups, alongside the looker.

  “Enough,” she said.

  “Oh, let us boys have our fun,” the fox-man said. “I just wanted to see if our new friend can take it as well as dish it out.”

  “This is getting us nowhere.” The gorgeous girl tossed her head fetchingly.

  Toshi cocked his head to one side. He liked her. She had a patrician air about her, but she wasn’t afraid to step into the thick of things. If only he could convince her to drop this whole orochi business and come a-wandering with him and Kobo. Or better still, without Kobo.

  As he mused, the girl wizard, the female fox, and all the armed samurai stepped closer to the knockout. Perhaps they didn’t like the look of Toshi’s leer. Perhaps, he corrected himself, he should learn to mask his thoughts better when looking at a pretty girl.

  The mercenary part of Toshi’s brain began to whir. She was important to this group, the central figure. Rich? Ransomable? He eyed the tall girl some more, trying to gauge her weight. He was sure Kobo could carry her, but he wasn’t sure if there was room in the bald brute’s pack.

  Kobo shoved the last of the jerked meat into his mouth with a loud smacking sound.

  He spotted the hyozan brand on Kobo’s breast and wondered if the angry red character would ever heal properly. Then Toshi sighed. Kidnapping rich girls would get the hyozan no closer to solving his soratami problems.

  “Thanks for the food,” Toshi said. “We’ll be—”

  Kobo suddenly sprang to his feet. His tetsubo club appeared in his hands, and all three kitsune samurai drew their swords, stepping in front of the tall girl.

  Toshi opened his hands to show how unthreatening he was. “One step behind, Kobo, as usual. No more fighting. I was just—”

  “They’re all around us,” said the ogre’s apprentice.

  “Who is? Who’s around what?”

  “He’s right,” said one of the samurai. “Something’s out there. We’re surrounded.”

  The little fox growled angrily. “How did we miss their approach?”

  A low, menacing hiss rose up from the ground nearby. It was echoed on the opposite side of the camp. More hissing came, joining the chorus, until it was the only sound in Toshi’s ears.

  “Orochi-bito,” Choryu muttered darkly. “The snakes are upon us.”

  Toshi looked at each of their faces, with expressions ranging from shock to fear to steely resolve.

  “Great,” he said. “Just great.”

  The first orochi attacker fell out of the trees onto Kobo. Toshi saw only a wild tangle of reed-thin arms and legs clad in green scales before Kobo threw himself back and crushed the orochi-bito between himself and the trunk of his sitting tree.

  Then the woods around the campsite exploded into violent action as the snakefolk attacked en masse. Toshi drew his jitte with one hand and his long sword with the other, spinning in place as the blade cleared the sheath. The tip sliced across the outstretched hand of an orochi behind him, and the snake-man fell back, hissing.

  Toshi looked the orochi up and down as it circled to his left, its long forked tongue flickering between its dripping fangs. It was almost as tall as Kobo, but narrower around than either of the bald youth’s legs. Even with its four arms held tight to its sides and its legs pressed together, the orochi was thinner by far than a human being. Its face was a broad, flattened parody of a human-serpent hybrid, with eyes of solid red that gleamed over a sheet of smooth green and brown scales. It was so well camouflaged against the forest background that Toshi could barely tell where the orochi’s limbs ended and the underbrush began. When it was in the shadows, all he could see was a glimmer of scaly motion and those terrible red eyes.

  The orochi-bito he had slashed undulated back. It kept two more of its arms out in front and the last curled protectively over its stomach. The fourth hung down past its knobby knees, a trickle of greenish blood dripping from between its fingers where Toshi had cut it.

  He heard an ear-shattering shriek and ducked just as another orochi sailed over his head, smashing the one Toshi had cut back into the underbrush. Without turning, Toshi said, “Thanks, oath-brother.”

  Kobo grunted in reply. From the sounds, he was hard at work.

  Toshi pressed his back to a tree and quickly scanned the campsite. A dozen or more orochi were grappling with the kitsune party. The unarmed fox-man was getting the worst of it—his enemy had both his arms and both his legs clamped in its long-fingered hands and was preparing to bite. The sharp little fox thrashed and flailed to get free, which didn’t actually work, but it did force the orochi to hang on instead of strike.

  The three kitsune samurai had formed a small circle with the tall girl in the center. They hardly seemed to move, but every time a snake came close, there was a blur of polished steel and a spatter of reptile blood. They weren’t going to win in the long run, but they were keeping their foes at bay.

  The wizard boy’s eyes were full of blue light and he wore a halo of water. An orochi snapped at him, extending its long neck, and he blasted it out of the campsite with a geyser of water from his hands.

  The wizard girl, on the other hand, had broken out a bow and fired into the pair of orochi slither-walking toward her. The first snake took the bolt on its top shoulder, but barely slowed its charge. The second flowed over the first and fell on the wizard, splintering her bow and crashing into her like a wave.

  “Lady Pearl-Ear!”

  The tall girl’s shout turned everyone’s head. She was yelling for the fox-woman, who had one orochi by the back of the neck and was forcing its face into the soil. A second snakefolk, a female, had fastened herself mouth-first onto the fox-woman’s shoulder from behind. As the orochi clamped down, Toshi could see the glands in her throat pumping venom into Pearl-Ear’s body.

  Lady Pearl-Ear’s eyes opened wider than Toshi would have believed. She swooned and crumpled to the ground.

  One of the kitsune swordsmen skewered the female orochi before she could slither clear. The snake-woman’s death rattle was like wind-driven sand in Toshi’s ears.

  In turn, another orochi clamped onto the samurai’s arm. He was able to transfer his weapon to his free hand and cut the snake-man’s throat, but his eyes rolled back and he fell on top of his dying foe’s body.

  The confusion intensified around the tall girl, and soon the entire kitsune party had closed ranks around her. A half-dozen orochi corpses littered the campsite, but there were dozens, perhaps scores, slither-walking in. Toshi looked around, noticing that no one seemed to care about him, where Kobo was fairly covered in snakes.

  Like the akki, the orochi-bito had swarmed over the huge ogre’s apprentice and covered him from head to toe with their bodies. Toshi estimated that Kobo had engaged at least as many snakes as the rest of the both groups combined. If not for him, they all would have been overwhelmed and bodily carried off long ago.

  The bald youth’s tetsubo lay at his feet, buried in the skull of a large orochi. Deprived of his weapon, Kobo was continuing to break their bones between his enormous hands. Without the hideous grinding and grating sound, it looked as if Kobo was merely grabbing the snakes and hurling them off. Whenever he touched an orochi-bito, however, the snake hissed in agony. When they landed, their limbs, spines, or skulls had lost any semblance of rigidity.

  They bit him repeatedly, but their fangs were not strong enough to penetrate his skin. Clear venom dripped from his biceps and forehead, and the occasional broken tooth shook loose when he struck. He punched his massive fist into a pair of orochi and they folded around his knuckles like wet paper. The blow continued until it struck a cedar sapling, which exploded into a shower of splinters and bark. Kobo shook the crushed pieces of dead snake from his fist, then crushed another orochi to the ground with his huge right foot.

  Toshi suddenly had a clear line of sight to the white-haired boy. He was staring at Kobo with undisguised astonishment, eyes wide, head shaking in disbelief. Toshi took a split-second to enjoy that expression, then turned back to parry an incoming orochi’s clawed hands.

  Across the clearing, the littlest fox-man succumbed as the orochi holding him finally pinned him long enough to strike. As Toshi took a reflexive half-step forward, another kitsune samurai fell to a bite on the leg.

  There were now four orochi for each member of the party and a dozen or more for Kobo. The tall girl, her wizard friend, and the last samurai were surrounded by a cluster of snakes. The wizard boy was gone—perhaps he had reverted to type and run screaming for his life. Kobo continued to bear the brunt of orochi attacks, but he was still largely unharmed.

  But now there were so many snakefolk in the camp now that there weren’t enough targets for them. A half-dozen of the leftovers turned and slithered toward Toshi on their long, flexible legs.

  Kobo let out a muffled curse. Toshi turned and saw that the venom on his head had run down into his unmarred eye, painfully blinding the ogre’s apprentice. Sensing his weakness, the orochi slithered across his body and folded themselves around his chest, linking their multiple arms to completely encircle their prey. More orochi wound themselves around Kobo, and the entire mass cinched tight and began to squeeze.

  Kobo held his ground for a moment, and then a huge rush of air blew past his lips. Toshi saw him struggling to inhale but the pressure on his chest prevented his lungs from drawing air. His face reddened, then grew purple. His eyes bulged wide as they locked on Toshi.

  The triangle tattooed on Toshi’s hand began to burn, and the ochimusha snarled. The first of the approaching orochi caught Toshi’s blade square between the eyes, and Toshi rolled under the second’s grasping fingers, driving his short sword between the snake’s ribs as he went. He kicked the third in its broad, flat nose and slashed an arm off the fourth.

  Charging past the final two, Toshi sprinted to Kobo and struck the head from one of the constricting snakes. The pressure on Kobo’s chest eased, but the other orochi closed the circle quickly enough to keep any air from entering the giant’s lungs.

  Toshi raised his sword again just as a stinging pair of needles injected liquid fire into his back. He reversed his blade’s tip and shoved it back and up, under his own arm. The snake behind him died even as it injected venom into Toshi’s body.

  Toshi staggered, then fell to one knee. His throat closed. His vision doubled. The muscles around the bite cramped and spasmed. He felt the swords falling from his numb fingers.

  The campsite spun before him and he heard the tall girl scream. She sounded a hundred miles away.

  The last thing Toshi saw before falling to the ground was a flash of the tall girl’s hair, almost lost among a wall of grasping hands and scaly skin.

  * * * * *

  In a painful black void, Toshi drifted. He was cold, but he could not actually feel his surroundings. His arms and legs tingled as if he had slept on all four at once, and his forehead burned with fever, though cold sweat poured down his face and back. Blind, he struggled to turn his head, searching for the barest glimmer of light. He saw nothing, a vast nothing that was darker than the space behind his own eyelids.

  I’m dead, he thought dimly. The stony gray hell has finally claimed me.

  His throat felt clogged, and his breath wheezed through it. No. That wasn’t his breath. Something else was wheezing.

  Hissing, he corrected himself. There was a constant, droning hiss all around him. That should mean something to him. He ought to remember why hissing was important, but all he wanted to do was rest …to rest and not to think.

  The numbness in his limbs continued, but Toshi also became aware of a stinging, burning sensation across the back of his left hand.

  His back still felt wet, but there was resistance. The void became more solid beneath him. Was he floating on water? It felt now as if he were spinning lazily like a leaf in a stream. He began to swirl faster, and a drop of something wet splashed across his forehead.