Smoke in the Sun (Flame in the Mist #2)(9)

Possessed by the Wind and Sky




It was a night for magic. A night swirling with mystery, an unknowable energy pulsing in its depths.

A promise and a threat.

It had begun earlier, as the scent of metal and moss had collected in the air. The summer storm that had followed had livened all it touched, forming a lushness that lingered long after the sun graced the clouds.

The promise.

Following the first smattering of rain, lightning had cracked across the sky. Thunder had growled from the distant mountains.

The threat.

The fortress of Akechi Takamori stood stalwart against the storm, as it had for five generations past, in unflinching service to the Minamoto clan. After all, a dusting of rain was nothing compared to the monsoons that were sure to come in the future months. Tonight, the thunder and lightning felt strangely at odds with the indifference of the rain. As though the threat levied by the clouds had been halfheartedly carried out.

As the rain collected—its patter becoming one with the echoes of chirping insects and burrowing creatures—a new sound rustled through the trees on the edge of the Akechi domain.

From the deepest reaches of shadow, figures began crawling forth. Their angles and contours seemed fashioned from night itself. Each of their footsteps pressed against the earth as though choreographed by an unseen hand. Tales of old would have cast them as demons crawling from the forest, summoned beneath a darkening sky. These stories had been lost over time, just as the ancient magic became rarer with each passing season. Now only those born into the skill and those willing to risk their very lives to acquire it lived to breathe truth into them.

But these were not demons of the forest, come to life. Save for one, they were men. At least forty of them. Masked and dressed in black, an air of urgency propelled them through the darkness to the very foundations of their enemy’s lair. They crouched low to the ground and made their way across the gently flowing creek bed just beyond the stacked stone walls of the Akechi fortress, stopping in unison beneath a rise of shadows. The unseen hand split the group of men in two, without a word. One half crouched lower, gliding single file toward the reeds near the rear gate, their synchrony perfect, their strides an unbroken ripple. If the night breeze were to fall to its death without warning, the only sounds that would be heard would be the stretching of climbing rope, the whisper of blades being drawn.

The short breaths of anticipation.

The second group of men moved toward the wall on the opposite side of the compound. They pressed their backs against the stacked stone as their leader—the lone demon of their ranks—studied the grooves above: the notches worn into the surface, the space between the mortarless stones. Then the masked demon made a call like a starling, his signal rising crisp and clear into the night. It was something he’d learned from his father, Asano Naganori. This ability to sound a call above detection.

From the ring of tall shadows at the edge of the forest beyond, an expert bowman took aim, his black leather kosode and shining eyes framing his motions. The first arrow sailed through the darkness, whistling as it neared its mark. Its steel tip embedded between the stacked stones an arm’s reach above their heads.

Asano Tsuneoki took hold of the arrow. Checked his weight. Then levered upward in a graceful stroke. Before his other hand even made it to the next hold, a second arrow sailed through the night, just above the first. The arrows continued flying toward the wall as he swung his way toward the battlements above, each of his movements unhurried and precise, aided by the strength of the demon that thrashed through his veins. The same demon that—when left unchecked under the light of the moon—rose to the surface in the form of an otherworldly creature: half wolf, half bear.

Once he reached the top, Tsuneoki breathed deep and waited, staving off the desire to crow in triumph. Their task had only just begun. Though the Black Clan had already cast two of the emperor’s loyal subjects from their lands in only four days, this particular stronghold would provide a bastion for his men. A place for them to regroup and strategize in safety, for however long it might last.

Moreover, Tsuneoki wanted this fortress. After all, Akechi Takamori had been the first daimyō to turn his back on Tsuneoki’s father a decade ago. The first to set fire to the Asano stronghold and watch with glee as it burned.

Now—after ten long years—Asano Tsuneoki would take back a measure of what his family had lost. Beneath him, a spark of flint striking stone flashed through the darkness. An arrowhead dipped in pitch caught flame, multiplying into many tongues of fire, forming an even row below.

In unison, the men of the Black Clan nocked their fiery arrows, then loosed them all at once. The flaming arrows reached skyward—suspended for an eerie instant—before looping over the wall and striking the thatched roofs on the other side.

In the moment it took to blink, the straw caught flame. Hoarse voices and sleep-laden shouts began emanating from within the Akechi courtyard. An eerie wail unfurled into the darkness, like that of an animal caught in an iron trap, watching its life slowly bleed from its limb. Most of the men ringing the perimeter waited. Two more figures clad in black began scaling the wall, using the same embedded arrows to brace their weight.

As the fire grew fast and bright, the wailing within intensified, its sound caterwauling into a midnight-blue sky. Unnerved, the second group of men hovering in the reeds near the rear gate stilled, the hairs on the backs of their necks standing on end.