FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

1

Four bandits hid in an alley deeper in town. The leader wore a grungy, hooded oil cloak. The one behind him wore a high-collared, purple cloak and a pointy wizard's hat. The third animal wore a simple cape that did nothing to obscure his armor and claymore, both gleaming from what little sunlight shone through the canopy of overburdened laundry lines above them. The last man wore a small sail, haphazardly tailored into a cloak, because nothing else fit.

"No more of this!" the third bandit, Stowhart Granfyre, barked. "We've caused undue harm with that stunt. You said Masamura Kage was your only target!"

"Aye, he's all I'm after," Masamune Kage said, nodding. "It ain't my fault those guards decided their jobs were worth an early retirement. Now shut up before somebody hears us!"

"Nevermind that," Ed, last in line, said, "didya get th'money back?"

Masamune patted his left side, where a small fortune in a bulging sack clinked. "Swapped th'gold back for a bag of pebbles while Al wasn't lookin'."

"I still don't understand why we couldn't disguise ourselves as...I dunno...merchants or something," Stowhart persisted, disgruntled. Heroes from his favorite fantasy novels inevitably disguised themselves for the climactic infiltration; as merchants, entertainers, scullery maids, even tax collectors, but bandits? It didn't feel particularly heroic, especially not after the pandemonium they'd incited.

They were lucky to find a bandit troop in the Wilds willing to be their distraction, if “finding" also included getting jumped at knife-point while you were trying to sleep. Masamune hired them, using his gold as a down payment, to raid a “quiet little town on the other side of the mountains". Instead of attacking them as Stowhart feared, their leader, Al the Alarmingly Alacritous, who happened to be one of Masamune's former crewmates, eagerly accepted the job. No one ever believed his claims that he used to sail with THE Masamune Kage, and there he was, in the wrinkly flesh. Anyone hiking nearby last night would've mistaken their impromptu party for a tribal celebration. Drinks were chugged. Barbecue was burnt and devoured. Stowhart only got any sleep because Masamune began regaling the bandits with tales of his exploits sometime after midnight. He'd never heard silence so rapt and giddy. Uproarious cheers after Masamune promised to raid with the troop after the New Lotus job woke him up the next morning.

Everyone was all smiles and good cheer the whole journey to South Gate. Now they were all dead and Masamune hadn't shed a single tear.

None of them ever heard of New Lotus. Masamura's colonists moved in and slaughtered all the natives years ago, and neighboring tribes avoided the mountains ever since. Rumors speculated a dragon moved in and made sashimi with the previous inhabitants' offal, which wasn't far from the truth, if somewhat insulting to a dragon's culinary palate.

Masamune shook his head. "It'd never work. We'd have to pass through th'gate normally as merchants. One guard gets a good look at my pretty face 'n we're screwed."

"Oh come on. Your disguise is fine."

"Lord Kage!"

The four men spun, katana, claymore, axe, and two hands poised like they were making weird shadow puppets, aimed at the elderly beaver who'd just walked out of the backdoor behind them. His grin penetrated his fuzzy mustache and reached his eyes, which were rimmed with more laugh lines than a sold out comedy show. He adjusted his spectacles, squinting at Masamune.

"Oh...You're not Lord Masamura Kage. You must be a relative of his, the resemblance is uncanny. Sneaking in to surprise him for the festival tonight, no doubt?"

“Uh," Masamune said."

“What an eventful day it's been!" the beaver cut in. “Why, I was working up on the roof earlier today and Lord Rinkachi stole my rake! Ran up and snatched it right out of my hands, can you believe it? Right before those bandits swarmed in. What a day! Can't get much more interesting, hopefully. Oh, excuse me for prattling. Sir. What did you say your relation to Lord Kage was, again? I wasn't aware he had any relatives near his age. That is, except for…"

Masamune ran him through with Sun Reaver. The beaver sputtered, then slumped over the otter's arm, dead.

"Masamune!" Stowhart yelled. "Why did you kill that man?!"

"He knew too much," Masamune shrugged. The corpse fell to their feet as he stepped aside. It landed in an undignified, prostrated position.

"It had to be done," Ed said, grabbing Stowhart's shoulder, who shoved him off begrudgingly.

"He murdered an innocent animal!"

"Master?"

The group spun toward the backdoor again, this time facing three wolf pups. They wore iron shackles around their necks and wrists, which tethered them together. The boy leading the chained pack was the one who spoke.

"Master, are we going to the market for you to sell us now? Oh my Gods! What have you done?!"

"Don't scream!" Stowhart quickly raised his hands. "We're not thieves, and we're NOT going to hurt you."

Masamune was blowing his claws while Stowhart glared sidelong at him.

"We...uh...you're free! We've freed you from the harsh clutches of slavery!"

The four pups stared like he'd given them a sales pitch for car insurance in demonic tongues.

“Um," Stowhart said.

"You mean we have to go into the forest?" one wolf asked, terror-stricken.

"Uh, sure, if you want?"

"We have to hunt our own food and find our own shelter and protect ourselves from bigger predators?"

"Well..."

"Help! Help! Thieves! Killers!"

"SHUT TH'FUCK UP!" Ed shouted. His eyes rolled back. White foam spilled sloppily from his crazed snarl.

"GET BACK INSIDE 'N LOCK TH'DOOR BEFORE I CUT YOUR DAMNED HEADS OFF! BUT NOT BEFORE I GIVE EACH OF Y'ALL A BIG, FAT, KIIIIIIIIIISS!!!"

The door was slammed shut, locked, and bolted an instant later.

Ed reverted to his usual demeanor and licked the foam off his lips. Stowhart watched this with his jaw hanging. "Whipped cream," Ed said. “Swiped a can from a stall on our way here."

Stowhart blinked at him.

"Like th'Harbinger's job, ha! That takes me back." Masamune said.

Lain Granfyre, who'd struggled to maintain his lofty attitude in light of current events coupled with Thunderkiss's surprisingly itchy cloak and hat, couldn't stay quiet anymore. “Where are the other two?" he asked.

Ed's eyebrow rose. "Other two?"

"The cats!"

"Ah! Ferris 'n Ferrari split after we went up th'ladder," Masamune said. "We'll bump into 'em sooner or later. I ain't paid 'em for bein' my cock warmers yet."

Lain grimaced as memories of their antics resurfaced. He never knew such an old man could bend that way.

“Whatever," he said. “We'll make our move when Thunderkiss returns. If everything goes according to plan, no one'll ever know we were here."

Now Stowhart grimaced. The Golden Rule of everything going according to plan was to never jinx it, and saying it out loud like that brought all the fortune of a malignant tumor. He thought his brother watched more anime than this.

"At least things can't possibly get any," Stowhart said, stopping himself too late as the backdoor swung open a third time and armored guards with swords drawn stepped out.

"There they are, officers! They killed our Master!" a chained pup cried from behind them.

"And one of them has rabies!" another pup added.

"Slovenly, villainous curs! Attacking a law-abiding, tax-paying, Gods-fearing slave owner in broad daylight?! You'll hang for—"

Masamune stabbed the guard in the face with Sun Reaver. Ed slammed his axe through the other guard's iron helmet at the same time, splitting his skull down the middle before he could blow his whistle.

Lain turned, put on Thunderkiss's hat, and began a purposeful walk away from the slaves crying for help. Stowhart lumbered after him, the Labrador mutt gaping like a beached whale.

2

Thunderkiss, elsewhere, soared above the clouds. New Lotus Town, the roads and hills and forests and terraced farmlands surrounding it, and the mountains encasing them all, sprawled far beneath him.

Local tribes believed the mountains were dragon territory. Thunderkiss sensed sulfur build-ups, saw scorch-marks denoting territorial borders, but no dragons. Well, there were some at South Gate. Eight of them. Eight huge, ferocious, menacing dragon skulls adoring the walls alongside gold parapets, town crests, and banner advertisements, one of which offering free apple pies to adventurers at Lily Lucy's Tavern, which presumably weren't very popular because nobody was supposed to know where New Lotus was.

Thank Gods those schmuck bandits thought they were plaster replicas.

Thunderkiss peered along Main Street, the dirt road leading from South Gate, to the square where the other gate roads intersected. A quaint little fountain stood there. Fruit stands and cozy shops encircled it. Bandit corpses bled out in a pile nearby, staining the cobblestones red. Buckets of water were dumped to wash the blood as townsfolk lined up to get portions of fresh meat.

Thunderkiss flew away from the square and over a range of rooftops where tilers were hard at work. Pedestrians further below gave workers wide berths as they hauled raw materials to various construction sites. Roads alternated between trampled dirt and freshly laid cobblestone, with more of the latter the farther into town he soared. Thunderkiss noted two kinds of workers: ones lively with the pride of knowing they'd made a mark on untamed territory, and others with whip scars across their backs.

The Kage Manor stood in the center of it all, the oriental pistil of New Lotus' budding flower.

He sensed him there.

Cortessa's elemental, Storm.

Horei claimed he only knew his name and species, and T.K. believed him. No one's loyalty outlasted Masamune and the pussy brigade's bladders.

Cloud elementals were powerful sonsofbitches.

Cute, puffy, cuddly, and capable of turning animals into jelly with their deadly weather magic. If electric elementals were temperamental, clouds were climatemental. That wasn't a word, but what else would you call someone who'd turn into funny shapes in the sky, only to drop a blizzard, lightning, and hurricane on your head, then a deluge to wash away what was left when you guessed they'd turned into a beluga whale?

Thunderkiss drifted backwards, away from the manor.

"One warning, young brother of the skies."

Thunderkiss turned sharply, quills sparking off his mane. No one was behind him. He didn't sense anyone nearby.

"The mammals die tonight. They are ants, trapped in a maze of their undoing as the molten lead of my Mistress's rage floods in. Abandon your Master, and live. Join me in service to my Mistress."

“As if, asshole," T.K. grinned despite himself, his hateful gaze darting everywhere. “Me 'n Lain are bound at th'hip. He dies, I die. Paranoid about bein' betrayed. Wonder where he got that idea from?"

“Severing another elemancer's soulbind is nothing, for my Mistress," the sky echoed. He sensed Storm in the manor, and all around him, before gray arms hugged him from tight behind. Thunderkiss's nonexistent blood ran cold. His imaginary heart skipped an imaginary beat. He'd never make fun of mammalian idioms again.

Strong fingers caressed his chest as a large presence leaned against him, nuzzling his spiked mane as eagerly as a cool pillow. Skydivers knew better than anyone that clouds weren't necessarily soft to the touch. It's wet, prickly with hail crystals if you're lucky, and you're liable to get zapped if you aren't. Being totally immersed within a cloud is like losing yourself in a dense fog. Storm's hug gradually swallowed him, and he couldn't move. He wouldn't.

"It's been so long since I've seen another of my kind," Storm said. "It'd be a shame to have to kill you."

Thunderkiss swallowed.

"Abandon Lain Granfyre."

Thunderkiss imagined himself breaking free, zapping the old fuck, and loudly declaring he'd never betray Lain for all the Mistresses in Three Worlds, and even if he would've, he wouldn't betray Lain for his Mistress because she was the biggest, fattest cunt who'd ever lived.

He said nothing.

The gray hands released him.

"Tell your companions they're expected."

Storm's breath on his neck became a whisper, then disappeared entirely. Without looking back, Thunderkiss bolted toward Lain. Townsfolk saw this as lightning tearing across the blue sky overhead, and feared it'd rain before tonight's festival.

3

Thunderkiss would've noticed Storm's presence intensifying in the manor if he'd stayed. He accumulated like smoke around his Mistress's slender, cloaked silhouette. A puffy collar grew around her neck, obscuring her flat, serpentine head. Smoke also trailed down her back to the bottom of her cloak, turning it into a wispy train. She remained perfectly still throughout this process. One might've mistaken her for one of the many marble statues which now lined the walls of Masamura Kage's office. Dim candlelight nevertheless cast long shadows across their sculpted contours, and dug black holes where their vacant eyes would've leered.

"It is done," Storm said.

"Exccccellent," she said.

"Excellent doesn't have S's in it."

Cortessa of the (formerly) Six Demonic Petals of the Twin Lotus, faced Rinkachi. He wore a silk kimono matching his sister's, who stood beside him, tight-lipped, pretending he hadn't interrupted their intel meeting with an asinine comment. It was dark, elegant, becoming of his status as one of Lord Kage's apprentices, and itched his nuts and pits something crazy. He wore the look of someone with ten perfectly good claws and the knowledge that he'd lose all of them if anyone caught him scratching. He couldn't risk it. The girls down Main Street loved his fingers.

"What?" Cortessa asked.

"Excellent doesn't have an S in it," Rinkachi repeated. "Ain't that your sssshtick?"

“Rin," Meikurichi growled in a low voice, attempting to remain poised while Lord Kage watched them behind his oak desk.

"Sometimes she does it for words with S's in them, sometimes she does it for S sounds, and sometimes she just forgets!" Rinkachi persisted. “What the fuck's up with that?"

"I fail to ssssee the point of this futile exerccccise."

"There, she did it again! 'Exercise' has an S, but she held the C! She didn't even hold the S in 'This'!"

Then Rinkachi noticed Lord Kage's glare and shut up.

"It seems Masamune and his companions ssssneaked into town while your apprenticccce's were preoccupied with the banditssss," Cortessa said after a long pause.

Rinkachi glowered. She must've been doing it on purpose.

"One thousand pardons, my Lord," Meikurichi said, bowing.

“My apprentices aren't at fault," Lord Kage said.

"We aren't?" Rinkachi asked, then winced at the phantom pain of Mekurichi's elbow gouging his ribs.

Masamura Kage closed his eyes, a visual sign of the deep sigh he held in. His underlings believed he kept his office dark so Gunso, whose magic let him traverse great distances through shadows, could come and go freely. It was, partially, true. The candle burning in front of him made parts of his face glow while casting others in deep shadow, hiding all signs of worry and fatigue. It turned his grimace into a severe scowl, his knotted brows into a fiery expression of confidence. The effect was most prominent around his eyes. The sockets were now black holes in which his eyes, reflecting the firelight, were white pin-pricks of cosmic rage. He kept a small mirror on his desk, glancing at it when no one was looking and adjusting his posture for optimal lighting.

"I want to see Masamune," he said. "His successful Infiltration of New Lotus means he is worthy to die by my hand."

"As if!" Rinkachi snapped. "He ain't getting by and 'Sis."

"I mussst, this once, agree with your oaf of an apprenticccce, my Lord. You needn't ssssully your hands with his blood while I am around."

"Who're you calling an oaf, rodent breath?"

"Enough."

Everything except for Lord Kage's crepitating candle flame silenced momentarily.

"Do not approach Masamune. He will slay you."

More silence.

Then, Rinkachi ground his fangs. Coressa hissed. Meikurichi spoke first after another curt bow. "Yes, my Lord."

"You three will engage his comrades: the Granfyres, and his apprentice."

"An apprentice, eh?" Rinkachi said with a wry snort."What's his regimen? Getting drunk and shitting in the woods?"

Meikurichi groaned. The two of them would have much in common, in that case.

"Lain Granfyre is mine," Cortessa said.

"Dibs on this 'apprentice'," Rinkachi said.

"Do not fail me. Go."

Smoke enveloped Cortessa, and she was gone when it dissipated. The tigers vanished within the shadows they backed into. Masamura Kage lost all traces of them, and might've been impressed if they hadn't opened his office door, revealing both in a yellow rectangle of hallway light. Rinkachi smiled and waved as he shut it behind them.

Alone, Masamura stared into the small flame before him. He briefly massaged his brows between his thumb and forefinger.

"Mayumi…"

The flame didn't respond. Neither did his reflection, whose face was lost in a crimson glow.

4

Michitaka Kage sat alone in his bedroom, dressed in a fresh robe and enough perfume to flood a flower patch. Neither helped him feel clean after having worn a man's guts like suntan lotion earlier today. He'd never take the sanctity of a long, hot shower for granted again. One day, he might even forget what it felt like to comb someone's teeth out of his hair.

Twenty-nine ink paintings, each worth a laborer's yearly earnings, lined his walls like a private gallery. Cashmere curtains hung over his, locked and barred, windows, five bars vertical, seven horizontal. Sunlight shimmered dimly through them, which darkened as he counted the minutes. Six handcrafted pieces of artisan furniture stood in his room. Sea serpents and dragons and flowers were engraved on all of them. Fifteen dragons. Eight serpents. Thirty-nine flowers. Michitaka Kage owned two swords, and neither were here. Father forbade weapons in his bedroom.

He was locked in.

Someone would, supposedly, let him out tomorrow morning. It'd "all be over" by then.

Masamune Kage was in New Lotus, and Michitaka Kage didn't have his swords.

Masamune Kage's foul, bitter stench engulfed him.

Masamune Kage's malice gurgled from the pit of his stomach.

And he didn't have his swords!

Michitaka pulled up a loose floorboard under his bed, unearthed a small dagger, and clutched it with both shaking hands.

Masamune Kage is here.

He'll kill Father.

He'll kill me.

Like Mother.

He'll finish what he started.

He's—

"Hello."

The second floor hallway must've been empty, because no guards barged in after Michitaka shrieked.

The intruder shut him up with a slap across the face.

"You good?" Gunso asked.

Michitaka blinked. A noble upbringing prepared him for slaps as much as intruders interrupting perfectly good anxiety attacks, i.e., it hadn't. He looked Gunso up and down. The frog's cloak screamed "grimdark flasher", which, granted, wasn't a loud fashion caterwaul with Beatstick and Cortessa around. He answered by pointing his dagger at him, wielding it like a flashlight in a pitch black mausoleum.

"W-who are you? How did you get in here?"

"I am Gunso, of the Six...okay, it's getting annoying to have to say that all the time. I'm part of your father's super-powered assassin squad."

"You could've said 'Six Demonic Petals of the Twin Lotus' faster than it took you to say all of that," Michitaka countered. "Besides, you're lying! Everyone knows there's only five Demonic Petals!"

Gunso sighed the sigh of every burnt out, contemporary shinobi with grievances toward their lack of renown. He supposed a more seasoned ninja would've been pleased. No one recognizing him meant he was good at his job. His uncle said he'd entered his Lord's estate through laundry carts and wine barrels at Gunso's age, which might've explained his lifelong fabric softener addiction.

Gunso, slouched in a nearby dresser's shadow, sat up.

"There's six of us," Gunso began, reconsidered, then shrugged, "okay, well, four of us now. The point is, I work for your father. You may think it's no big deal, having to say 'of the Six Demonic Petals of the Twin Lotus' all the time, but you try repeating it for every introduction, every interview, or anytime you wanna sign a check, or lease, or receipt, then tell me it doesn't get old."

"You're not here to kill me?" Michitaka asked, ignoring his diatribe.

"Would I be sitting here, talking to you about apartment leases and histrionic job titles, if I wanted you dead?"

"Probably," Michitaka said. "You don't want to get stabbed, so you're trying to lower my guard. Or maybe you just enjoy monologuing at your victims like a spy villain."

Gunso nodded speculatively. "In any event, I'm here to help."

"So you say. I say I don't trust strangers in my bedroom while everybody's on high alert."

“Wise," Gunso nodded again, "but what do you expect to do with that hairbrush I replaced your dagger with while you weren't looking?"

Michitaka stopped pointing the very unbrushlike dagger at him to gawk at it, giving Gunso an opening to chop his wrist with one hand and snatch the weapon away with the other. The next few moments were burdened with an embarrassment so heavy it would've sunk through hardening cement. He'd all but resigned himself to a swift death to escape this dense shame when Gunso said, “I'm gonna let you out."

This only redoubled Michitaka's suspicion, which further distracted from his utter humiliation. Father wouldn't've allowed this. No one opposed him without a good reason, and unless they factored losing your head into the scheme, there weren't any.

"Why?"

"Who knows?"

"You."

Gunso stopped to appreciate this logic.

"Well, it doesn't matter," he said. "I told the guards patrolling this floor your father ordered them onto the roof. You should've seen their faces when I said Masamune Kage can fly."

Michitaka stared.

"Can he?"

"No, for Gods' sakes! C'mon, hurry up."

Gunso stood, approaching the doorway. Its heavy wood, iron knob, and hinges blacker than the bottom of a burnt cauldron made it look more like a door to a dungeon cell than a Lord's son's bedroom, and considering it was locked from the outside, that's essentially what it was.

Balancing on one foot, Gunso raised his other leg, bending it until his knee pressed against his chest. He kicked forward with all his amphibious might.

Gunso stood thirty seconds later, after he'd finished rolling around and clutching his knee, where the first fireworks show of the evening went off. Michitaka watched him with a rueful scowl.

“I'll be right back," he said, then hobbled into the boy's closet and shut the door. Michitaka opened it after an awkwardly quiet minute elapsed, only to find he'd disappeared. It hadn't surprised him very much. He was more amazed at how much like a snake the frog sounded earlier, while hissing in pain.

Gunso returned a short while later by opening the door from outside. He looked battered, haggard, mildly annoyed and slightly disheveled, but his gait'd recovered. His lily pad hat sat crookedly atop his head. He'd introduced himself as Gunso of the Six Demonic Petals of the Twin Lotus to every guard he approached. Michitaka was right, it was quicker. What he hadn't considered was how excellent a shinobi Gunso was. No one recognized him. Explaining why he, an apparent intruder, wanted the Lord Kage's son's bedroom key, while they were on the lookout for intruders, hadn't gone well. Particularly a brief incident with a guard who'd known Horei personally, who'd apparently always said, quote, “There never was, never has been, and never will be a sixth Demonic Petal. If a blue frog wearing an emo cloak and a stupid hat says otherwise, you should sound the alarm and stab him in the back at your earliest convenience".

Hiding the body hadn't been a pleasant detour.

There were other incidents. Harsh words flung, chases averted, but he eventually found a master key in the servant's room and returned to free Michitaka.

"These are yours, I believe."

Gunso tossed two sheathed swords at Michitaka, who caught them with both arms.

"These were locked in Father's office!"

"I don't need a key to get in there. Plus, your father's preoccupied elsewhere."

Michitaka clutched his weapons to his chest. "He's really coming, then."

"He's here," Gunso corrected.

The frog's blunt words put a defibrillator to Michitaka's catatonic fright. No, fear didn't quantify the turmoil injecting its black venom into the stubborn vestiges of his courage. It was too small a word for the bottomless chasm of emotions opening beneath him. He told himself he wasn't afraid. Terrified, sure. Horrified, probably. Utterly terrorized with bone-chilling panic, definitely, but not afraid.

Father wasn't afraid, so Michitaka Kage had to be fearless too. English synonyms notwithstanding.

He changed into his kendo uniform as though he'd slept in and was an hour late for practice. He buckled his sword belt, then slotted his katanas into place. His countenance fiercely determined, Michitaka ran out into the hallway. Gunso, who stood out of his way, in the opened door's shadow, watched him go.

"Could've said 'thank you'," he grunted as blackness swallowed him.

5

Morris never wanted to be a town guard.

He, a boar of twenty-five, had joined the Order of Ashright after graduating high school thinking he'd slay dragons daily, crusade against the forces of darkness, and enjoy the lamentation AND desire of tribal women whose mates he slaughtered. He received the lamentations of women, but only after asking them out. The only dark forces he'd crusaded against thus far were in Captain's chamber pots. He'd gone near some dragons at least, if you counted cleaning their remains off the others' weapons and armor.

It made sense. Someone had to mop up. Someone needed to bag the loot and push the wagon bag to camp. But why him? Why didn't he get to see any action? Why did he have to sweep away the aftermath of everyone else's fun, along with his unfulfilled ambitions? Mother would've called it a terrible waste of his potential. He prayed the guardhouse would get a telephone so she could tell off the captain for him.

He now patrolled Lord Kage's backyard pond alongside Brawn, a weaselly fuck whose disposition had as little to do with him actually being a weasel as his name did with his physical stature. Brawn wore his helmet the way a sapling wears a kettle. His chest plate shook with the wind and whenever he shuddered, the latter of which he did perpetually. Saying he shuddered like a leaf put the junipers and willows around them to shame. Leaves shuddered, but the plants they were attached to stood firm. The only thing Brawn stood for was an early retirement.

It was a cool, breezeless night, so Morris knew the loud rattling behind him wasn't the wind's fault.

Brawn, meanwhile, palpitated because he appreciated the term “homicidal maniac"'s brevity in describing someone maniacally talented at homicide, knew Masamune Kage (see: “homicidal maniac") was on the loose, and all he had for protection were a foil-thin chest plate and a pea-brained pig desperate to be sliced into bacon strips.

He marched a foot or so behind Morris, letting him point his shaking sword at the shadowy bushes around them.

"Masamune Kage isn't here. Curb your disgraceful cowardice," Morris groaned.

Brawn added another few inches between them.

"I'll curb my cowardice when I'm dead," he said, instantly regretting it. "Or, or, tomorrow morning, when I put in my notice. Maybe I'll become a farmer. I've always liked fresh air, especially when it's filling my breathing, living, uneviscerated lungs."

"Show some backbone, man!"

"No," Brawn said. "I'll keep my backbone in its original container, thank you very much."

Morris snorted, then stopped abruptly. Brawn collided with his immovable back, cursed, then froze upon seeing the outline of a tall, muscular otter over Morris's shoulder.

"L-lord Kage!" Morris said and bowed low at the waist, his partner hastily sheathing his sword before doing the same.

"Uh...AT EASE!" Masamura Kage's outline said. He stood within a low-hanging willow's shade. Thick flower bushes flanked him, almost like he was hiding behind them. He wore a nice kimono. Not as elegant or pristine or even as well ironed as ones he'd usually wear, but nice. His hair looked remarkably like a bunch of hay painted white and sloppily fashioned into a terrible wig.

Both men stood as if pikes were shoved up their asses instead of noting these things.

"You've done well tonight," Masamura Kage told Morris.

"I have?"

"Yes. From tomorrow onward, you'll be assigned to the most dangerous, trauma-inducingly brutal war party."

Morris's tusked grin was one of genuine, wide-eyed pleasure.

"And you..."

“Y-yes, Sir?" Brawn asked. He'd somehow held it together after “trauma-inducingly brutal".

"You're on desk duty."

Brawn trembled with something other than fear for the first time in a long while. He wouldn't've gotten the same euphoria spike upon winning the lottery.

"T-thank you, Sir!"

"Yes," Morris added, "thank you, indeed!"

"You're dismissed for tonight," Masamura Kage said. They nodded along, grinning ear to ear.

"Tell the others on backyard patrol they're also dismissed. And speak of this to no one else!"

"Even the backyard patrol?" Brawn asked.

"Yes. No. Wait. I meant speak no word of this to anyone other than backyard patrol. I think." Masamura Kage stroked his unbraided beard (which Brawn appreciated, he hated how unapproachable the noose-beard made his Lord appear), and consulted the azaleas behind him in a hushed conversation. “Yeah, that's right," he said, facing them again. “Understand?"

"Yes, Sir!" Morris and Brawn said in unison.

“Good." Masamura Kage said. Moments passed.

"Now go!"

They went, giddily.

Masamura Kage stood beneath the bearded willows, watching them go.

"Well shit, that was easy," he said.

6

Night fell like a weak-kneed codger.

Masamune's group laid low after Thunderkiss's report, before security around New Lotus tripled.

Guards searched overburdened wagons.

Haystacks were pitchforked.

Locked cellars were opened, suspicious crates busted, and portraits of Masamune and Ed with WANTED written on them in big red letters instead of autographs were plastered everywhere. Ed noticed how old they were. He was wanted alive, and his bounty was several thousand gold lower than it should've been.

Masamura Kage's manor now swarmed with guards. The place crawled, walked, ran, skipped, and filed tax paperwork with guards. It also teemed with guards, schemed with guards, and steamed with guards, in the case of a select few who took advantage of the commotion to use Lord Kage's private sauna. They patrolled in shifting groups. Five sets of three rotated around the front. Six pairs rotated the garden pond and back veranda. If you could count on guards for one thing, it was that they'd yammer their whole life stories with one another during their shifts. Masamune knew all twelve of the backyard crew's faces, names, aspirations, sexually transmitted woes, and who was fucking whose wife, husband, daughter, son, aunt, uncle, and/or grandparents within an hour of eavesdropping. He knew these twelve better than they knew each other's assholes, which, given some things he'd heard, was saying a lot.

The group went through many plans before settling on this one, which accounted for Thunderkiss's eloquent testimony that the enemy knew they were here and couldn't wait to rip their spines out of their urethras.

More importantly, it checked all of Masamune's boxes for schemes that couldn't possibly go wrong.

It was easy.

It was fun.

It might get him laid.

None of these things turned out to be true, but at least it worked.

Breaking into a tailory to steal a disguise during a townwide search was its own headache. Masamune didn't have much time to masquerade as his brother afterward, certainly not enough to cajole any maids into sleeping with him. The kimono and wig put his nerves in a tag-team stranglehold of itchiness that ensured he'd strip both off at the first opportunity. He couldn't help but feel gypped.

"They actually bought that. Finally putting your noble blood t'good use, eh?" Ed said from behind the bushes.

"Buy my foot up yer ass," Masamune said.

“Kinky."

Infiltrating the garden began Phase 2 of "Operation: Killing my Faggot ass Brother" (which Stowhart wanted to call “Operation: Fratricide" because he didn't abide by such crass obscenities, but neither Masamune nor Ed knew what “Fratricide" meant and didn't believe it had nothing to do with bug spray when he told them). Step 2 of Phase 2 involved kicking open the nearest sliding door with their weapons drawn, helping Masamune get his foot unstuck from the paper mesh, sliding the unlocked door open, then jumping into the room whose silence had nothing to do with its stunned occupants so much as the fact that it was empty. It went off without a hitch.

They tiptoed across tatami mats, and onto the polished floor panels of an empty hallway. Everything was quiet. An unsettling calm settled comfortably over their heads.

"You two search this floor. I'mma go upstairs," Masamune said.

"What'll we do if we find Masamura Kage before you?" Ed asked.

"Die, probably."

"What if we run away?" Stowhart followed.

"Die with your backs turned."

"I think we'd better follow you," Ed decided.

"He ain't down here," Masamune said. "Call it my gut, or intuition, or whatever y'want. I can smell 'em."

Ed shrugged. He rarely saw the old man this focused, this tune in with his senses, without a hooker involved. Masamune continued down the hallway, their muted footsteps nevertheless pounding in their ears like war drums. They reached an intersection unimpeded, where they split up after exchanging silent nods.

“You know," Stowhart said as Masamune rounded another corner, “What's an otter supposed to smell like anyway?"

Ed gave him a funny look. “You've been with Masamune all this time."

“Yes," Stowhart said, “and he's bathed three times since I've known him."

7

Magical literature rarely looked, smelled, or tasted (according to herbivorous students tired of ramen noodles) different from regular books (carnivorous students liken leather-bound tomes to old jerky). Modern mages rejected many old-fashioned spellbook design stereotypes, stereotypes their elders relished. Gold lettering. Skeletal claws along spines. Enough sparkly gemstones to put a prom girl's sequin dress to shame. Elder mages preferred real gemstones for their tomes. They saved sequins for their robes and hats.

Point being, the absence or presence of these didn't necessarily indicate books of power. Books with aura were dead giveaways. No normal book should've had one, unless it was a mimic, or in the case of “certain kinds" of reading material, recently used by a mage, neither of which you'd wanna touch. Magic-users easily found books of power, wherever they were, by sensing them: shouldered between dusty travel guides in cramped libraries, at the bottom of book burning piles alongside liberal novels and dungeon master's guides, on the magazine rack in a dentist's office, anywhere.

Lain's senses made executioner's axes look dull. There were no tomes in the manor, but what about the rest of town?

While Masamune and the others confronted Masamura Kage, he and Thunderkiss wandered around, searching. There could've been a secret library anywhere. In seedy allies, behind inns, in laundry house cellars, anywhere. This was for Emil. It wasn't about leaving no stones unturned. He'd uproot the whole damn mountain if he had to.

Stowhart, he reasoned, was safer with Masamune. Yes, he was a drunk, indecent, vagabond psychopath hellbent on a 1v1 with his presumably less drunk, definitely less indecent, debatably more psychopathic highborn older brother, but he was old. You didn't get to old age living like Masamune Kage unless you were good at it. He knew that now better than if he'd watched him fight over one hundred times, which he practically had over the course of this past week, much to his stomach's detriment. If the enemy engaged either group, Stowhart was safest with his.

Aaaaw, thinkin' about your widdle brudder?

I'm not, Lain lied.

I'm literally in your head.

That makes gaslighting you more brazen and fun.

Lain followed pedestrian traffic down a congested road further cramped by various colorful stalls. Bright, dancing lights and lanterns and torches turned what should've been a dark-shrouded settlement this late at night into a lurid beacon. Fried foods clogged the air with their oily scents, perfuming the festival's loud throng. The thwarted bandit invasion and Masamune Kage supposedly being on the loose hadn't dampened tonight's festivities one bit. Everyone's faces were aglow with warmth, good cheer, and the certainty that if Masamune Kage was in town, he'd be captured and hanged by tomorrow morning.

Lain, sweating behind T.K.'s cloak, pulled its high collar over his face.

Would it kill ya to show me some vulnerability? Some compassion? Some playful banter?

Maybe, Lain replied.

I'm dyin' here! I get my fix from daytime soaps and we haven't had a workin' television for a whole week now!

Lain appreciated this, and the lessened burden on his wallet for the airship's satellite bill, with a dull frown.

As you said, you're literally in my head. How much more vulnerable can I be?

Let's find out.

Lain's hand, under Thunderkiss's control, swatted something round and gargantuan behind him. A loud, resounding clap muted the immediate clamor as a large, robbed rhinoceros woman slowly faced him. One moment, he had all the elbow room of a tightened straightjacket. The next, he was surrounded by a wall of wide-eyed onlookers as everyone hurried away from him. Lain blinked, and several armed men, her entourage, turned from their respective stalls. They didn't look particularly bothered, but their gleaming weapons matched the intensity of their employer's glare.

Lain rescinded his negative thoughts about large crowds as he leaped over their heads and ran through them for cover.

The chase, like any physical exploit led by aggressors who used forklifts like elevators, didn't last long. Lain hunched beneath the wan glow of a lonely street lamp in a quiet park. The festival's cheery tumult deadened as it meandered around black trees to further assail him.

"That was...wholly unnecessary," he panted.

Made ya pretty vulnerable, right?

"You'd have at least chosen a more appropriate victim to make your point. I feel slandered somehow."

That's how I felt, Thunderkiss persisted.

"I wasn't aware you've ever been chased around crowds of gawking bumpkins for slapping a woman's ass."

I meant when the familiar jumped me.

"Ah."

He came outta nowhere. One moment, I'm flyin' high, playin' super spy. Then, BAM! Some old cloud fuck givin' me th'weakest reach around handy I've ever had.

"You didn't say he touched your penis."

Shit, he might as well've. Would've been th'highlight of his fuckin' night. He'd never get it up from his bitch Mistress takin' a paddle to his doughy ass again. Touchin' my Lightnin' Rod would've given that creepy bastard wet dreams for weeks, th'way I got you slobberin' all over it.

"You're the one who's always begging to suck my dick," Lain countered.

Don't change th'subject! This is bad, Lain, really bad. There's still time. Say th'word and I'll call Tinhead now. We'll dip. Three Worlds is full of spooky dungeons 'n forbidden texts. Why do we gotta rob some withered samurai 'n his clown posse of magical psychopaths like this is some cheesy spaghetti western?

Lain needed a moment to collect his thoughts. He hadn't anticipated how severe a blow to his ego having his life called “cheesy" would've been.

“Because that 'withered samurai and his clown posse of magical psychopaths' made a fool of me, and he'll die for it!" Lain snarled over his clenched, gloved fist. “Or, at the very least, be majorly inconvenienced. Whatever Masamune can accomplish. Anyway, we're in too deep. His goons will be on our tails forever unless we deal with him now."

Wind whistled through the trees like a prisoner behind bars. Moths fluttered around the streetlamp overhead, dancing to this weary melody.

Lain'd trained himself not to think certain things while T.K. was in his head. He'd gotten very good at it over the years, as evidenced by the fact that the elemental never knew when he was in the mood for bedroom fun, nor where he hid his bags of three cheese nacho bombs. Now, he didn't think about how concerning it was that T.K., the self-proclaimed Mortuary Ticketmaster, The Mammalian Deep Fryer, who held grudges so powerful he'd wait months for a rainy day to get as much lightning-charged payback as he could, wanted to run. He didn't think about how the past few weeks made him yearn for the simplicity of looting homicidal liches and their undead armies. He definitely didn't think about how T.K.'s cloak was a garish color, nor how his pointy hat belonged in the bargain bin of a knock-off party store.

Instead, Lain eventually said, "I didn't know you could call Stowhart."

He's more soulbound to you than I am, Thunderkiss said, paused, then continued. I could call him if I really wanted to. It'd be faint, but I'd juice it up. Just gimme th'word.

Lain was too late.

Too late to seriously consider T.K.'s worry for the first time.

Too late to file a crashed airship, a week's hike through the jungle, bags of gold funneled down an elderly hedonist's bodily drains, and months of leads as time wasted.

But not too late to dodge the shuriken thrown at the back of his head.

He leaped backwards to avoid it.

It pierced the ground ineffectually.

If there was a Top 100 for pitiful attempts on his life, this one would've gone platinum and dedicated its success to the unending support of its ailing mother.

Then, a massive icicle tore the cobblestone path where he previously stood like a surprise tour bus bill. It continued like a skewed javelin, rending flowerbeds, grass, benches, and everything in its path before stopping several yards away. Mayhem wreaked in the private office of his magical acuity, which now detected the frost-steaming missile after it missed turning him into a greasy smear within the ditch it dug in its wake. No, it hadn't missed. If he hadn't dodged the shuriken…

The icicle dissolved, becoming white clouds that whorled above the streetlamp. They circled the woman standing perilously up there, and Lain's senses went into another delayed panic at finally noticing her presence. Only a powerful mage could mask themselves this totally. Floating ice crystals reflected frigid hues off her black scales. Sparks jolted from the orbiting clouds, which settled around the collar and down the back of a billowing, thunderstorm-colored cloak. Her glare, momentarily aimed elsewhere, was a glowing, noxious green.

"Gunsssso," the cobra woman hissed. "You're alive after all. How unfortunate your return sssshould interfere with my plans."

"Just trying to help," a voice called back from somewhere.

They were surrounded! How? When? Lain's frantic gaze alternated between the woman and searching for her accomplice. He neither heard nor felt his presence while he wasn't talking. It was like he disappeared.

Jump back, now!

Obeying T.K., Lain dodged a stream of fluids squirted from behind the woman's cloak. Watching the green liquid corrode the ground in a sizzling line, and noticing it'd splashed his hat and cloak, terminated any childish innuendo concerning where the bile'd come from. He tore them off and threw them away. Both were reduced to black, crumpled heaps atop a bubbling neon puddle within seconds, which itself steadily devoured the earth.

"It sssseems you're trying to help my prey escape," the snake woman said, slowly descending on the back of a whorling squall. She discarded an empty vial, one of many attached to harnesses around her bikini, as her clawed feet touched the ground.

"It seems you're trying to blame me for your poor aim," her accomplice, hiding within a dark tree ahead of her, countered. “That's hardly fair."

Now his voice came from a bush behind Lain, having covered a distance of several yards instantaneously! Lain spun to face it, and Thunderkiss emerged from his back, facing the snake.

A teenage frog, Gunso, sat cross-legged, yawning at him.

"We can disssscuss this later." The snake woman glared at Gunso, her forked tongue flicking. “Along with our Lord's imposed dietary restrictionssss."

Gunso, undeterred, stood upright. “Normally, I love getting eaten by older women, but you couldn't afford me. You wouldn't believe my monthly sweets budget."

“I, Cortessa of the Demonic Petals, can afford many things. After I've dealt with Lain Granfyre, I shall sssshow…"

Lain Granfyre and his familiar were gone. She stared at where he stood for a long, simmering moment, turning to Gunso when he didn't reappear. Her gaze could've been bottled and strapped onto her harness. Such practices hadn't occurred since the Four Era, but he now knew what it was like to be a frog strapped onto a grade school dissection table.

"Where did he go?"

Gunso pointed.

Cortessa watched Lain Granfyre's rapidly shrinking back in the distance for another long moment.

"Ah."

"I didn't wanna interrupt our discussion."

"I see."

More seconds tiptoed out of the blast zone.

"I'll leave you to it then," Gunso said, disappearing behind a bush before a lightning bolt reduced it to a pile of ashes in a smoldering crater.

8

Masamune'd kicked open the wrong sliding door to make his grand entrance.

Ed, thinking the first floor must've been cleared if they hadn't ran into anyone by now, slid open the door Masamune should've chosen. He'd hoped to find tea and dinner cookies. He did. He also found a gaggle of stunned guards sitting around various pots and teacups.

The air hissed with the drawing of many swords, and clinked with the clamor of armored persons hurriedly standing in formation, trodding, dropping, or tossing aside ceramic teawares while doing so.

Every door down the hall burst open to unleash a stream of guards with the force of several unclogged waste pipes. Ed and Stowhart were forced back into the hallway, surrounded.

“So, you were all waiting to ambush us the entire time!" Stowhart barked, amazed.

“Yeah, I didn't hear any of 'em when we passed a minute ago," Ed growled.

“We heard Masamune Kage with you," a sneering guard said.

“We'd be fools to attack Masamune Kage in this cramped space!" another guard concurred. “I've heard what he did to that bazooka militia in Greenwich Tunnel!"

Stowhart rose an eyebrow at Ed.

“Long story, don't ask."

Stowhart then faced his half of the guard circle, squinting. “Wait…You must have heard Masamune's plan to search for your Lord. You let him go, just to ambush us?"

Several men in the crowd coughed, inspected their finger claws, stared at their feet, or performed some chimeric sequence of the three.

“No one can best our Lord in combat," a guard hurriedly said. His expression, and his comrades' incredulous glances, made it seem more like a question than a statement. “Yeah, no one! Stopping Masamune would've implied otherwise. We'd never dishonor our Lord like that!"

The other guards cheered at this, swords raised, after a brief hesitation.

“Well, come at me then!" Ed impatiently shouted at them. “I can fill cemeteries as well as th'old man! Who'll go to Hell first with th'glory of me slayin' 'em?"

"Who are you?"

Him. He'd go to Hell first.

"Wait, I think that's Ed the Vagabond."

“That's Ed the Vagabond?"

And him second.

"I thought he'd be taller."

"Or more chiseled, like Masamune."

"Right? Look at that GUT!"

Third, fourth, fifth…

“Forget about who he is!" Stowhart boomed above the growing din. “Obviously, none of you are loyal enough to die for your Lord, so there's no reason for us to fight. Pretend you never saw us, return to your families, and find new employment that doesn't test our courage beyond its limits. Take up bakery. Farming?"

Consideration hung over everyone's heads like a straining chandelier.

"I've always wanted to make dresses," one guard said. Everyone stared. “But...but Father never allowed it. Especially not after he caught me wearing Mother's old wedding dress to measure the waist."

“Now's your chance," Stowhart said.

“To measure Mother's waist?"

“No! To make the prettiest damned dresses anyone's ever seen. Spite your father. Make your mother jealous. You can do it!"

Ed slammed his axe through the unfulfilled tailor's head while he and everyone else was distracted by Stowhart's heartfelt encouragement. The bifurcated corpse flew backwards, throwing five startled men prone.

"Ed, what are you doing?!"

"That guy called me fat."

"That was THIS guy!" Stowhart pointed at a pale-faced animal.

Ed blinked, then shrugged. "It's crowded. I got 'em mixed up."

"And he didn't even call you fat, which wouldn't matter because you are fat, which isn't a reason to kill people!"

"He was bein' rude," Ed persisted. “Hurt my feelin's."

A kind of fight you'd only see between a chuck roast and a meat grinder broke out. Bodies flew through paper walls, into expensive furniture, and over the heads of new guards previously running toward the commotion but now reconsidering where, or into whom, their life choices took them.

These guards weren't your average hired goons. They had honor, integrity. Instead of utilizing dirty tactics, they engaged Ed and Stowhart one at a time, or in groups of two, relying on teamwork, fundamentals, and sword arts honed over centuries in the most prestigious schools to get eviscerated by their axes and claymore.

A grotesque puppet show played out on the thin walls within the hallway rooms. One where big shadows thrust themselves at smaller ones. Sometimes there were tinny weapon clashes. Most of the time, fluids sprayed across the sliding doors in impressionistic streaks, accompanied by death screams fit for stock recording. More guards funneled into the hallway, scaling hills of fallen comrades, to join the fight. Paid guards didn't run. They had pensions. Salaries. Life insurance. Where half a gang of surly thugs would've ditched by now, only a couple of Masamura's guards fled, deciding they'd rather live with the shame of abandoning their post instead of dying on the floor in more pieces than they got out of bed with. Lots of premiums were going up tonight.

The battle died down, along with everybody else. The walls were drenched. The ceiling dripped. Ed hoisted Get Fucked over one shoulder while twirling Or Else in his other hand. Their battle'd ended, but the maids', armed with mops, buckets, and lots of therapy, would begin soon enough.

"That was quick," he sighed, disappointed.

Stowhart panted, his bloody claymore's point on the ground. Wearing gore like sunscreen contributed to his unhealthy complexion.

"I...I killed guardsmen," he said in a voice grave enough to dig in a cemetery. "Some are wearing Order crests. I raised my sword against fellow countrymen..."

Ed, as tone deaf as a skewered eardrum, slapped Stowhart's back and left a greasy handprint on his armor.

"You did more than raise it to 'em! Save some for me next time, eh?" he said, his big smile plunging into the chasm of Stowhart's vacant gaze.

"I need air," Stowhart said.

"So do they, huh?" Ed laughed. Stowhart looked at him. He stopped and hid his axes behind his back slowly.

"Why didn't Masamune take us with him?"

Ed blinked, then masticated on an appropriate answer. There were lights in Stowhart's eyes, but only to show they were still taking vacancies.

"To keep us outta his way, where we're safe. If Masamura Kage's really waitin' upstairs, this is th'safest place in th'house."

Stowhart perused the wide, soggy room they made out of the hallway, after flinging over a dozen guards through sliding frames. The only ceremonies they'd hold here involved restless spirits and EMF readers.

"The safest place?"

"You're in one piece, ain'tcha?"

"Physically."

"Bein' two minds on a topic never killed nobody." Ed followed Stowhart's gaze to a prone guard's head and winced. "Okay, bad analogy."

Stowhart wasn't appeased. In fact, his eyes suddenly bulged. His body alternated between violent convulsions and statuesque rigidity. Ed backed away slowly. Overreaction was putting it mildly.

Thunderkiss'd called him. “Juicing it up" apparently meant taking a taser to his spinal cord, squeezing it end to end like a yogurt tube, then tossing it on a radiator to be forgotten and burnt to a crisp. The message wasn't clear, but he deciphered the staticky patina of impressions veiling his mind easily enough. Danger. Dread. Lots of expletives.

Then the call ended. Stowhart slumped, heaving. His spine cowered in a corner and called the authorities. Despite this, his gaze'd cleared.

“I gotta go," he said.

“Is that it?" Ed said, adding another foot between them. “Well, don't feel shy 'bout dumpin' th'truckload with me watchin'."

No, something's wrong. I think Lain's in trouble. Thunderkiss just called me somehow."

"You sure it ain't nerves?"

"My nerves don't call me Tinhead."

"Y'kno, I was wonderin' about that. Y'don't wear a helmet, so why does he—"

"Focus! Look, I'm going. He's my brother." Stowhart lifted his claymore and faced Ed. Things were getting dicey. This could've been the last time he saw the bear. "You could come with me," he said.

Ed shrugged. "Can't. He's your brother, Masamune's my...well...there ain't a word for th'fucked up thing we've got goin' on, but I can't leave 'em."

Stowhart hesitated, then offered his arm.

Ed interlocked his with Stowhart's at the elbow. They flexed together.

"May the—"

"No time for that. Gotta hurry."

"Oh. Right. Cool. Catch ya later."

With a nod, Stowhart left him with the dripping carnage they made together. Ed looked around and sighed.

Somebody's face fell from the ceiling and landed on his shoulder.

Ed peeled it off and placed it back on the head of the guy he'd chopped it from without interrupting his wistful lul. He could've gone with him. He'd never find another friend like Stowhart again: one with a wholesome air about him, a ferocity in battle that made all the war Gods squeal, and a mini fridge.

Ed sighed again.

Oh well, time for work.

Masamura Kage was upstairs. Masamune would've found him by now, or returned if he hadn't. It never occurred to him that Masamura Kage might've killed the old man already, until now. Nobody could. And yet…

"Mettled Warlord," he began, wet hands joined, "grant me th'strength of my ancestors. Their courage, their tenacity, their rage. See me to victory, or grant me a death so glorious all of Hell will cower before me as I descend to join your unholy militia."

He unclasped his hands, turned, and something on his back shook. Probably another guy's body part. He reached back after failing to shrug it off, then remembered. A backpack. With everything happening, he forgot he was even wearing one. Stowhart's was full, so he'd asked him to carry some of his things…oh shit.

"Sto, wait! You forgot your—"

One of the few remaining paneled walls flew away as a striped, muscular leg kicked it aside. Masamune would've been embarrassed at how easily he'd done it, probably right after thinking “Damn, look at those calves!" Those calves became quads, the quads became abs, and the abs became the first of two tigers wearing expensive kimonos that came strutting toward him. The larger one's shoulders swayed with his leisurely gait. He sneered like he expected the corpses around them to get up and clap or, failing that, supplied a round of applause in his head. The shorter woman ogled the massacre like a highway chum spill.

Two swords hung at their hips. These weren't townsfolk fodder, or stuffy elites from overseas. They were samurai.

Kage samurai.

"Warlord," Ed said, "a glorious but quick death would be nice."