You honor me, acolyte. Go forth with my blessing.
Toshi opened his eyes. He grunted in savage triumph, intoxicated by the power suffusing him. It was all he could do not to throw back his head and laugh.
Nearby, the first set of needle-like teeth touched the surface of the Taken One. Pure white light flashed from the points of contact.
The oni’s mouths went mad, chattering wildly and swarming toward the stone disk. If the oni hadn’t recognized the power of the daimyo’s prize before, it did now. The storm of jaws surged forward.
Too late, Toshi thought. For once, someone else is too late.
He raised his arms and felt the power of his myojin surge through him. Circles of black light bubbled around his hands, and then Toshi did laugh, raucous, mocking laughter in the face of this terrible foe.
The black lights coalesced into a cloud around his wrists as the oni’s hungry mouths streaked toward him. When the first was only a few yards away, the cloud of light let out a terrible flash and a stream of pallid, cadaverous hands.
The river of palms and fingers blasted into the cloud of snapping jaws. Toshi directed the stream back and forth across the Oni of Chaos so that the demon’s jaws were fully opposed by the grip of Night’s Reach. The hands emerged identically: flat, straight, and with all the fingers pressed together, but they moved like living things once they touched the enemy.
Each pale-skinned hand clamped onto a pair of oni jaws and squeezed tight. When positioned correctly, they completely neutralized the voracious little beasts. If they missed the mark, they lost fingers to the insatiable appetite of the oni. Even these maimed hands continued to fight, however, pushing the invaders back to the doorway they’d come through.
Still laughing, still spraying the cloud of mouths with his myojin’s attendant aspects, Toshi slowly advanced across the room. The oni’s jaws could easily shred anything that came within range of their teeth, but the myojin’s innumerable hands continued to clamp them shut and move them back.
As one, the oni’s jaws opened and let out an enraged, ear-splitting shriek of anger and frustration. Untouched in the center of the swirling mass of hands, mouths, teeth, and fingers, Toshi raised his arms high and brought his palms together.
The impact boomed like a black-powder bomb. The concussion cleared a wide space around the ochimusha, which then quickly filled with disembodied hands. Safe behind a wall of the myojin’s power, Toshi pressed forward, driving the oni mouths up against the far wall and the closed door. He gathered his strength, cried out in ecstatic spiritual frenzy, and then forced the last of the oni mouths from the room.
He stood for a moment in the gently swirling cyclone of hands, breathing heavily. Then Toshi pitched and fell to his knees, wincing as his arms, legs, and stomach cramped.
Kiku was there to help him up. “You did it,” she said. The mahotsukai seemed impressed … but Toshi suspected that he was misreading her expression. Kiku was probably only surprised and perhaps a little put out that he had survived.
Toshi stood under his own power as soon as Kiku got him to his feet. “You bet I did it. I just sent Hidetsugu an engraved invitation to come slaughter us. That was his oni I just beat back. He’s not going to be happy about it.”
Kiku’s eyes widened a bit. “What should we do?”
“Get them all ready to go. I’m taking everyone in one trip.” He raised his voice. “And you, Nagao. You and your men will follow me to Jukai, now, without further discussion. Once we’re all safe and alive, I’ll consider taking you home.”
Nagao glanced at Silver-Foot. The kitsune nodded and Nagao said, “Agreed.”
Toshi stretched his arms, working the kinks from his muscles. “Line up, people. The last boat to Jukai leaves as soon as you’re all on board.” Kiku tapped him on the shoulder, and Toshi turned.
“And then?” she said.
“And then,” Toshi answered, “we see if Hidetsugu will let us dissolve the hyozan reckoners without a fight.”
Kiku nodded, her face calm. “That’s not going to happen, is it?”
“No,” Toshi said brightly. “But it’s worth offering him the chance.” He leaned in close and spoke into Kiku’s ear. “I’ve got something in mind.”
“I expect no less,” the mahotsukai said. “Go on, Toshi. Get these sheep to safety. The sooner we’re done here, the better.”
The survivors all stood in a long line with their hands clenched. Toshi reached out to Nagao at the front of the line and offered his hand.
One by one, the survivors of Minamo crossed into the shadows, finally escaping the bloody slaughter of the hyozan’s final reckoning.
CHAPTER 8
Hidetsugu sat glowering upon his throne of bones, thick black smoke rising from the corners of his eyes. He had felt the attack on his oni. He knew only one being audacious enough to attempt such an attack and powerful enough to accomplish it.
“Hunters,” he barked. “Stand ready.” Three yamabushi instantly bounded from the sides of the room to the throne. Once they’d landed, each dropped to one knee and planted a fist on the floor.
Hidetsugu was completely satisfied with his little raiding party. They fought well and obeyed without hesitation. Together they had bested Keiga the Tide Star, guardian spirit of the falls, and visited bloody vengeance on the academy students and staff. It had not been an easy campaign for them-only five of the original eight had survived. One had been slain as they stormed Minamo, one had been accidentally devoured by the All-Consuming, and one had simply dissolved his sky platform and allowed himself to fall five hundred feet onto the rocks below. Hidetsugu considered this last the only failure in the entire group.
The great o-bakemono stood, sending a fresh cascade of skulls and thigh bones rattling to the floor. Rib cages crunched under his feet as he made his way to the floor. Once there, he put two fingers in his mouth and whistled.
The oni dog appeared in a puff of charnel-house smoke. Even the yamabushi cringed as it stalked past them.
“Your playmate has returned,” Hidetsugu told the dog. “Go find him and do as you were summoned to do. Indulge yourself. Make merry with his body and soul.”
The dread creature snorted a jet of ashes from its armored muzzle. It reared up on its spindly hind legs, pivoted, and bounded from the chamber.
With machinelike precision, Hidetsugu attached a pair of armored plates to his shoulders and lashed a third across his chest. He stretched and flexed his powerful muscles, testing his range of movement. After readjusting the shoulder plates, Hidetsugu hoisted his spiked tetsubo club and swung it through the air like a willow switch.
He inspected the tip of the club, then fixed his eyes on one of the three yamabushi. “Come here,” he said. The mountain warrior instantly sprang to his feet and approached his master.
“Stop there,” Hidetsugu said. The priest halted with one foot still in the air.
“Good,” said the ogre, and then he crushed the yamabushi to the floor with his tetsubo. The thin, solid weapon fairly ripped the yamabushi’s body in half lengthwise and blood spattered over his fellows and Hidetsugu alike.
Moving quickly but confidently, Hidetsugu clamped his tetsubo between his teeth and scooped up the crushed yamabushi’s remains. He spit coarse, painful-sounding syllables around the bloody club in his mouth. The victim’s blood hissed and boiled where it touched the ogre’s face. Hidetsugu spat out the club, swallowed some of the crimson drops that had collected in his mouth, and began to chant.
In the old language of the o-bakemono, he converted the blood of a trusted retainer into a barrier against those who might likewise betray and murder him. When the last of the victim’s vital fluid had been squeezed from his corpse, Hidetsugu crammed meat and bone alike into his maw. In seconds, there was nothing left of the murdered yamabushi but a slick of red on the floor and similar droplets on the faces of the others.