“Teacher,” he whispered. “Look.”
A group of soldiers had entered the wooded crossroads below them. At least a dozen men, a scouting party, laced armor glinting through the shade in varied colors, red and gold and black. On small poles, they carried flags marked with a three-mountain symbol in a ring. One carried a conch horn at his neck.
“Careful,” Jobo said.
“What clan is that?”
Jobo said nothing; Sen shook his head. They lingered, watching as the soldiers trampled toward them. Someone called an alarm, and a group of mounted horsemen came into view, led by a trio of kijin dressed in armor of a deep crimson, so dark it was like blood, with helms of terrifying visage, adorned with different demons’ horns and crests of other decoration.
Their leader emerged, a tall, imperious man with a handsome, viciously proud face, cold eyes black as ink, and sharp cheekbones that gave him a hard, nearly hungry look. His movements were measured, dangerous, yet his every breath and glance seemed to sneer at the world as he surveyed it from his horse; his upturned nose gave the impression that he was surrounded by a stench.
His guard moved in a column around him, twenty riders in deep red. The footmen had armor unique to each, but the kijin were all dressed in the same blood-red, with bows and quivers full of hawk-fletched arrows, spare bowstring in rings at their sides.
Hunters, Rui thought.Warriors.
Jobo said, darkly, “That is Tokuon Sei’i.”
Sen had gone wide-eyed. “Who’s that?”
“He is Toryo, lord of the Gisan mountains…” Jobo said.
He turned to Sen. “He’s your cousin.”
A shout came up, and in an instant, the footmen pushed forward, surrounding them. More red riders came from the trees, quiet as ghosts, while the stern man, Lord Tokuon, peered down as he approached. “Jobo Daiten,” he called. “The crow monk.” He gave a tilt of his head, neither dismissive nor reverent. Then he saw Sen.
“Ame’in.” Tokuon’s demeanor remained impassive, like a statue, but his eyes held fire. “Fate has done well to meet us at the crossroads. I’ve been looking forward to this moment for quite some time.”
“What do you want?” Sen asked, uncertain.
Now a smile spread across Tokuon’s face.
“Hoshiakari,” he said. “I’m here to bring you home.”
When they arrived at the terraced paddies at the edge of Iyo’s lands, they found a country preparing for war. Tokuon had come with a retinue to meet the eastern lords, and had already made camp with the help of some of Iyo’s men. Sen’s sister Kai, they claimed, called for all Gensei to unite under her banner.
“Your sister was raised in the capital,” Tokuon said, “ward of Lord Masashige of the Zusho family, a house in the Keishi line. In that way they wanted her to be in their control.”
He called out a greeting as his soldiers came near.
“But the gods are angry,” he said. “Something’s coming. I don’t like these dark winds, this shifting of the air.”
“I’ve felt the same,” Jobo said.
“Where’s the Ogami’in?” Sen asked.
Tokuon nodded: up ahead. They entered the maze of tents in Lady Iyo’s meadow, where Tokuon’s retainers had set up their camp. “Hassho!” Tokuon called, and soon an old woman came forward. “My seer.”
Jobo turned his head. “Hassho Tayu, I should have known. How’d he manage to bring you away from your stone temple on the cliffs?”
“My lord Sei’i is searching for gods,” the old woman said, her voice like scraping coal. “Giants walk the borders of this earth, and he listens for them, hearing portents of good or ill. As do I. I have heard, Jobo crow monk. I have heard ill-tidings as of late. The gods speak. They speak of the four directions. The endless barrier will break and the red giants will descend into our earth, and walk the shores of these islands again. They come between our worlds.”
Jobo went still. “What do you know of those pilgrims?”
“I know what you know, crow monk. I know: they’re coming back.”
Soon Lady Iyo arrived with her guard, Nihira and Hakaru at either side, and Rui was brushed away like a pet when the kijin began their talks.
She tried to speak to Sen, but he was whisked off before they could do so much as share a glance. She felt the cold, judging gaze of the lord Tokuon Sei’i coming down on her as they left: it was not the look of a lord to a servant. It was a question mark, the gaze of someone who’d seen something that didn’t belong, and was trying to figure out what it was, if it meant an omen good or ill.The gods should tell me, she thought,because I don’t know either. And yet I meet it everywhere I go.
