The burning on his hand grew worse. The fingers seemed thick and swollen, and searing agony came with each attempt to move them. Another drop splattered on his cheek.

  His stomach lurched, and the muscles throughout his torso convulsed. Another drop hit him on the tip of the nose. As the water ran into his sinuses, Toshi coughed.

  His hand seemed to explode on the end of his wrist. Toshi bolted upright from his supine position on the forest floor, clutching his left hand with his right. He tried to cry out, but his throat was too narrow and produced only an anguished wheeze.

  It was dark. Soft, misty drizzle was falling, but larger drops had collected on the broad cedar leaves and were dripping down all around him. It had been raining, hard, from the dampness of the soil and the soaking wet bark on the trees. Moonlight illuminated the sky above the canopy overhead, but only pinpricks of silver light shone through. He was in some sort of natural enclosure, a room with walls made of live cedar.

  The motionless bodies of the kitsune party lay strewn about the area—mostly those of the foxfolk themselves. The boy wizard, the tall girl, and Kobo were not here. Toshi himself and the wizard girl were the only humans in the pen.

  He crouched down beside the female, Lady Pearl-Ear. She stirred when Toshi shook her, but did not wake.

  “Michiko,” she groaned.

  Toshi turned his attention to his hand, which still throbbed and ached. Through dull, clouded eyes, he stared at himself, turning the wrist so he could see the surface of the entire fist. They had taken his weapons and his leather mail shirt. He sat for a moment, naked to the waist with one hand clutched in the other, shivering in the rain.

  He staggered to his feet. Toshi wiped the moisture from his brow and took a tentative step toward the nearest wall of trees. It was a good cell, he thought. There wasn’t a door to jimmy or a lock to pick.

  Mechanically, with his eyes fixed on the wall before him, Toshi’s hand drifted down to his hip. He picked absently at the exterior seam of his leather breeches. When the end of a thin, shining thread came loose, he wrapped it around his index finger and lifted his arm up.

  A length of metallic wire pulled free of the seam. Toshi wrapped the free end around his aching hand and scanned the ground until he found two stones that were roughly the size of his fist. He tied the stones to the end of the wire with precise, tight knots and then placed them far enough apart to stretch the wire tight. Then Toshi ran his finger across the wire, slicing open the tip and producing a slow, steady flow of red drops.

  Toshi quickly inscribed the same kanji on both stones, then connected them with a line of blood along the wire. The symbols puffed out a jet of dark smoke, and the entire apparatus tarnished to a dull, flat black.

  Toshi picked up both stones in one hand, drew back, and hurled them at the nearest tree. The stones separated as they flew, drawing the wire taut. When the makeshift bolo made contact with the tree trunk, the stones and the wire shimmered, passing through the tree like a phantom.

  The device’s patina of dull black spread outward from where it struck the tree, withering the healthy cedar as it went. Toshi watched blankly as the entire tree became coated in a layer of flaky grime. He continued to stare as the tree withered in on itself, contracting down to less than a third of its original size.

  Toshi turned sideways and slid through the gap he had created. Once outside the walls of the pen, he found and retrieved the stone-and-wire device.

  There were no sentries he could see. Toshi turned south and shuffled like a sleepwalker through the dense woods. He still felt drugged, like part of him was back on that aimless sea of black.

  Slick with drizzle and sweat, Toshi lurched through the trees, climbing a small rise to a rocky ridge. There was a hole in the canopy here, and as he looked down Toshi could see an open space with two identical trees growing on a raised platform of dirt. They were planted several yards apart. Tough hemp rope stretched between them, meeting at the center on the extremities of a large human figure.

  Toshi’s slack face did not change, but the terrible dread of recognition punched through his stomach like a cold fist. Slowly, deliberately, he climbed down the ravine and up onto the dirt platform.

  Kobo hung between the two trees, thick ropes wound multiple times around both wrists and ankles. A wide, livid bruise stretched across his breastbone and disappeared under each arm. His head was tilted straight back, his eyes and mouth wide open. Rainwater had collected in the bald youth’s jagged features, filling his eye sockets and nostrils, running continuously from the corner of his lips. The pools of liquid helped smooth out the rough terrain of Kobo’s face, leveling out his scars, gashes, and badly healed bone.

  The hyozan mark on Toshi’s hand throbbed. He stretched that hand forward and placed the palm on Kobo’s breast, where the ragged, raw outline of the same symbol had been seared into the great youth’s skin.

  The giant was cold and his heart was silent. Toshi lowered his hand. The ogre’s apprentice was dead.

  Toshi closed his eyes, rage crowding all other thoughts from his mind. His hand throbbed anew, but he merely clenched it into a fist. His eyes lost their drowsy sheen and his vision became clear, cold, and precise.

  He reached out, holding his hand over the mark on Kobo’s breast without touching. Both hyozan symbols burst into red flame that quickly faded into a seething black glow.

  “Farewell, Kobo, oath-brother of the hyozan,” Toshi said softly. “Rest now. But there is no rest for us until the job is done and you are avenged.”

  Toshi carefully reached forward and tilted Kobo’s head forward, releasing a small deluge from his face. He placed his hand on the bald youth’s sternum and pressed in. More water burbled from Kobo’s open mouth and splashed down his chest. Toshi stared at the rivulets running to the ground and he nodded grimly.

  “Your apprentice is gone, Hidetsugu,” he whispered. “But I am still here. And there will be a reckoning.”

  PART THREE

  CRESCENT MOON SMILE

  Toshi worked quickly. Now that he was fully awake, he appreciated how vulnerable he was in the open. He untied the knots holding the stones to the wire, tied little loops in each end, and wound the thin metallic cord around his wrist.

  Every living thing that had a hand in Kobo’s death would be made to suffer, but not if Toshi himself remained unarmed and outnumbered. It was one of the pillars of the hyozan reckoners he had crafted—complete vengeance was more important than quick vengeance, and totality required careful planning. He could probably take quite a few of the orochi-bito with him if he attacked all-out right now, but they would certainly kill him as well. Then Hidetsugu would have to come, and the cycle of escalation would continue. The hyozan was designed to end vendettas, not perpetuate them.

  Toshi squeezed another drop of blood from his finger and drew the kanji for “messenger” on a fallen leaf. As he completed the character, the leaf crumpled as if being crushed by an unseen hand. The pulpy mass churned and rolled, slowly reshaping itself into a small winged form with eyes of yellow fire.

  “Return to Hidetsugu,” Toshi said. “Tell him that Kobo is dead and that I will honor the oath we swore. Tell him … tell him he will be more than satisfied with the doom I have planned.”

  The dark shadow of a bird bobbed its paper-thin head and fluttered up through the canopy. The ochimusha watched it go and ground his teeth as he prepared for what came next. It would require more than a few drops of blood.

  He unwound the wire from his wrist and rewound it once around his forearm. In the scattered moonlight, Toshi could have counted the ladder of straight, sharp scars that ran up the length of that arm. He clutched both ends of the wire in one hand, pulled it down so that his flesh bent under the metallic cord and then turned his arm until the wire bit through.

  Blood spit up from the wound as the sharp cord sliced into Toshi’s arm. He caught the red stream in his cupped hand, quickly smearing kanji across his forehead, chest, and opposite palm. Power surged and the heat of this magic burned him, but he kept collecting and smearing until all three marks were complete. He then slapped a wet leaf over the wound and held his arm up over his head to slow the bleeding.

  As he waited, Toshi watched the air around his body shimmer. The concealment kanji on his forehead would make him almost impossible to see, but he didn’t imagine that would protect him from the snakes for long. The symbol on his chest was for that.

  However, near-invisibility would allow him the freedom to move around the orochi-bito encampment. He needed to find his gear, his swords and his jitte and the pack he’d retrieved from his home in Numai.

  He coldly approached Kobo’s body and leaned into it again, pressing down on the dead youth’s broad chest. More liquid burbled from between Kobo’s lips, and Toshi caught it in his palm. The water mixed with the blood already on Toshi’s hand, and he smeared the mixture on the trees beside Kobo.

  On one, he made the hyozan triangle and kanji. On the other, he left a message for the actual killer, the person who had done the deed.

  Hidden within his shroud of darkness, Toshi scaled back up the ridge and followed the hissing sound to the east.

  He heard the sounds of movement, of people milling around in the same area. Creeping through the underbrush, he wriggled up behind a large tree and carefully peered around. Four orochi were standing in a circle, hissing in excited tones.

  They talked about things he didn’t recognize or didn’t care about until his legs started to stiffen, and then the subject changed.

  “How long until the ritual?”

  “Not long.”

  “And the intruders?”

  “Almost all of them accounted for. Still searching for one or two.”

  “The forest myojin will decide. It wants them all together.”

  “The princess, too?”

  “Definitely. The spirit will insist she die first, you wait and see.”

  “All of them will die. You wait and see.”

  “Princess?” Toshi stood and stepped out from behind the tree. “You boys are fascinating, but let’s turn back to the princess you mentioned, all right?”

  The snakes all peered at the shadowy form, their red pupils shining.

  “Outsider,” hissed one orochi.

  “Thug,” hissed the other. “Escaped.”

  The tallest orochi, the one who had been doing most of the talking, wore a headdress made of wood and bone. “Kill him now,” he said.

  “Can you worms read this symbol?” Toshi spread his arms wide, displaying the mark on his chest. “Can you even understand what I’m saying?”

  Two of the orochi rushed forward, an angry rasping sound their only reply. Their jaws distended as they came, displaying fangs that dripped horrid yellow venom.

  “Guess not,” Toshi said. Both snakes hit him at the same time, clamping on to his right shoulder and the left side of his ribs.

  The reflection kanji on his chest flashed and both orochi recoiled in shock. They coughed and hissed, blood streaming from their lips, as their own venom dissolved their bodies from the inside.

  The third snake, a female, shot forward on all six limbs. She feinted at Toshi with her fangs, but she knew enough not to bite.

  “Symbol won’t last,” she said. “It fades, you die.”

  Toshi shook his head. “I’ll be using your hide for a pair of boots before that happens.” He extended his hand, which bore the kanji for the second trial of the stone gray hell, ice. A stream of cold white crystals surged from the mark to the orochi’s face.

  The female snake’s breath hitched in mid-hiss, and cold white vapor streamed from her nostrils. She made a small, insignificant cry and then toppled headlong like a tree. When she struck the ground, her body was hard and cold like frozen stone.

  Toshi turned to the last orochi, who was slowly backing away.

  “I’m guessing that fancy hat means you’re important.” Toshi held his hand out again, and the last orochi’s eyes glazed over as his breath turned white.

  Toshi sprang forward, looping the wire filament around the orochi chief’s throat. He sawed the wire through the incapacitated snake-man’s tough outer scales. With a brutal jerk, he hauled the orochi off his feet and rammed him face-first into a tree.

  Toshi tightened the wire. “Now,” he whispered savagely. “We’re going to have a talk. I’m going to ask you questions. If I don’t like your answers, I’ll use your blood to paint this symbol,” he opened his palm in front of the orochi chief’s eye, “on every tree for acres in all directions. By morning, you’ll all be asleep in the snow, well on your way to dying from the cold.” He jerked the wire again. “Savvy?”

  “It won’t help you,” the chief said listlessly. “Great forest spirit is on the way.”

  Toshi spun the orochi away, snapping the wire out of the snake’s throat and spinning him back into the tree. The chief sank to the ground, clutching feebly with his four arms.

  “You let me worry about that,” Toshi said. He walked deliberately over to one of the fallen orochi, kneeled, and pried open the snake’s mouth. After manipulating the dead creature’s throat, Toshi squeezed a few drops of yellow venom into his cupped hand.

  Careful not to spill, Toshi went back across to the fallen chief and smeared the venom across the orochi’s face. He drew and connected a series of curves and lines until the snake’s entire face was contained by a ring of kanji symbols.

  “You’ll tell me now,” Toshi said. “That’s not a threat, by the way, it’s a fact. We’ll start small and work our way up,” he said. “Where are my weapons?”

  The orochi chief’s mouth opened inadvertently, and he struggled to close it again. The harder he worked his jaw, the more the kanji on his face steamed and burned.

  “And after that,” Toshi said, “you can tell me about the princess. Tall girl, dressed in white? I believe her name is Michiko.”

  The orochi chief hissed in agony. Toshi merely watched and waited.

  * * * * *

  Fully armed and dressed, Toshi crept once more through the woods. He left the orochi chief alive but temporarily paralyzed, spitting foam between his fangs. The snake had eventually described a large clearing to the east where the orochi-bito were planning a special ritual to summon their patron kami. There would be guards on the princess, but the other prisoners were thought to be safely stashed in the cedar pen. The chief didn’t seem to understand how Toshi had woken so quickly, as the entire party had been dosed with enough venom to keep them unconscious until morning.

  Toshi rubbed the hyozan mark on his hand. He knew what had woken him. Let the snakes think he was immune to the venom, however. It would make them more fearful when he returned.

  Toshi crawled away from the clearing, which was slowly filling with scores of snakes. There was also a small group of humans, bald, dressed in waist sashes, with the same sort of metal torso piercings Kobo had.

  Toshi almost spat in contempt. These budoka monks were working in league with the orochi-bito. They would never have found help here. Hidetsugu’s information was tragically out of date.

  He stole away and followed the chief’s information to a small hut not far from the ritual clearing. Princess Michiko was inside. There were three orochi lurking outside the small, thatched hut, but Toshi had anointed his weapons with orochi blood and venom in anticipation of this obstacle. Toshi quietly scratched a small kanji into the bark of a willow tree.

  He waited until the moon slid behind a cloud, and then he stabbed his jitte into the center of the symbol. In response, three whips of tough willow vine lashed out and tightened around the orochi’s throats. They clawed at the nooses and tried to break the vines, but the tree slowly pulled them off the ground and their struggles died away. Toshi strode through the orchard of dead snakes and into the thatch hut.

  Inside, he found the tall girl, bound and sleeping on a pile of straw. She was pale and still, but her chest rose and fell in a slow, almost glacial rhythm.

  “Princess Michiko,” he said. “We haven’t been properly introduced. Please come with me.”

  It was definitely the Daimyo’s daughter. He dimly recalled seeing her image on official proclamations, but they didn’t do her beauty justice. He never would have recognized her if the orochi hadn’t let her identity slip … which raised the question, how did they know?

  Toshi hooked his fingers over the vines binding her hands and hauled her up onto his shoulders. Casting spells for the past hour had burned away the last of his post-poisoning lethargy, and he felt as if he could carry the tall girl for quite a while. Fortunately, he knew he wouldn’t have to.

  He stood, bearing her weight until the concealing shroud began to affect her. When she was as faded and diffuse to the eye as he was, Toshi carried her out of the hut and into the deep woods due south.

  He would honor his oath with Kobo, but he would do so carefully. He would pool his available assets and bring as much power as he could muster to bear.

  Toshi hiked up a hill, easily balancing Michiko as he went.

  He hadn’t counted on the Daimyo’s daughter being one of his assets, but now that he had her, he intended to make the most of it.

  Pearl-Ear woke to the distant sound of an urgent voice and the unpleasant sensation of being shaken.

  “Lady Pearl-Ear! Open your eyes! She’s gone! We have to find her!”

  Pearl-Ear groaned and pushed the clutching hand from her shoulder. She cracked one eye and saw Choryu kneeling over her as water dripped from the trees overhead.

  “Michiko,” she said.

  “That’s right, Michiko. She’s not here with you. Where did they take her?”

  Pearl-Ear’s eyes opened wide. “Orochi-bito,” she said. “Is everyone all right?” She struggled to sit up, and Choryu roughly pulled her onto her knees.

  “Everyone’s alive,” he said, “but we’re not out of danger. They seem to be preparing a major ritual. I think they plan to sacrifice us to their patron spirit.”