by Wen Spencer
"Have someone escort the crew to safety," Wolf told his First. "The rest, come with me."
Maintaining his shield forced him to move slowly toward the human buildings, following the rut carved out by the force strike. The dust expanded, shrouding the area as he crossed the no-man's-land of the Rim.
"Keep the winds close," Wraith murmured as they reached the street. "There may be more than one nest."
Wolf nodded his understanding. The sekasha activated their shields and moved out of his protection. The house had been two stories tall. It made a large hill of rubble, capped by the broken rooftop. If there were any survivors, they'd have to be dug out.
Maynard emerged out of the dust, followed by a score or more of his people in EIA uniforms. All of the EIA were spell-marked, verifying that they were human.
"Wolf Who Rules." Maynard bowed and signaled his people toward the rubble.
"Maynard." Wolf nudged his shield slightly so it wrapped Maynard in his protection.
"What happened?" Maynard eyed the rubble as his people started to sift through it.
Wolf indicated the dead airship with his eyes; maintaining his shields limited his ability to motion with his hands. "Someone fired on what is mine. I returned fire."
Maynard glanced at the distortion around them. "How long can you keep up your shields?"
"There is no reason for concern." The Wind Clan's spell stones rested on a powerful fiutana that provided unlimited magic. "My gossamer is dead, but my crew is safe. For that I am thankful."
A call came from the EIA digging through the rubble. Most of the roof had been shifted off. In the debris of the second floor was a female huddled under a sturdy table. She appeared human, as small and dark as Wolf's domi. Old bruises, like purple and yellow flowers, marked her face and arms; someone beat her on regular occasions.
She gazed at Wolf with fear. "Don't let them have me! We're like cockroaches to them! Razing this neighborhood is just the start of them stomping us out!"
The human workers moved reluctantly aside to let the sekasha claim her. Wraith took out his leatherbound spell case, slipped out a biatau, and pressed it to the female's arm.
She whimpered and one of the watching EIA said, "It doesn't hurt. We've all had it done to us."
The simple spell inscribed onto the paper of the biatau was merely the first of the spells that the EIA had been subjected to, but it was the quickest and easiest to use as a first screening process. The oni had relied on an optical disguise spell that let them appear human; the biatau, when activated, would shatter the illusion and allow their true form to show.
Wraith spoke the verbal command and the spell activated. There was, however, no change to the woman's appearance.
Maynard sighed deeply, as if he saw all the dangerous complications that the woman presented. "She's human."
"Unfortunately." Wolf motioned that the EIA should take her prisoner.
"Here's another one," Bladebite called.
The second person was a large male, badly hurt. Wraith took out another biatau with the same spell and used it on the male. There was a ripple of distortion and the male's features shifted slightly to a more feral looking face with short horns protruding from his forehead.
"Oni." Wraith growled out the word.
"He's badly hurt," Maynard said. "The prison has a medical ward. We can take him there."
Wraith jerked the oni up onto his knees.
"Wolf," Maynard said quickly and quietly. "We have protocols on how prisoners are to be treated. The Geneva Convention states that the wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for."
"We do not accede," Wolf said, "to your Geneva Convention."
In one clean motion, Wraith unsheathed his sword and beheaded the oni.
The woman shrieked and tried to launch herself toward the dead body.
"Wolf, you can't do this!" Maynard growled.
"It has been done," Wolf said.
Maynard shook his head. "The treaty, which the elves signed, states that you will adhere to the Geneva Convention in the treatment of prisoners."
"For human prisoners," Wolf said. "We will not take oni prisoners."
Maynard frowned. "That is the only option you're entertaining? A massacre of all the oni?"
"They breed like mice," Wolf said. "We do not fight for today, or this year, or even this century, but for this millennium—and to do so, we must be ruthless. If we leave a hundred alive, in a few years they will be several thousand in number, and in a thousand years, millions. We can not allow them to live, or they will crowd us out of our own home."
"You can't let the elves do this!" the woman wailed. "If we don't stop the elves, they'll turn on us next."
"It's their world." Maynard leveled his gaze and words at his watching men, aiming his words at them alone. "Not ours."
"It was their world!" the woman shouted. "We're stuck here now, so it's ours too."
There was a flaw in Maynard's logic. The old arguments that Maynard could have used to counter her were useless now. Her railing, unfortunately, could lead the humans to dangerous ground, so Wolf interceded.
"We are willing to share with humans. We do not wish to share with oni. A full contingent of royal troops is on its way to Pittsburgh. When they arrive here, their goal will be to find and kill every oni that ever set foot on Elfhome. My people have committed genocide before and have full plans to do it again. I strongly caution you not to put the human race between the royal troops and our enemy."
Whatever impact his words had, however, were lost when the woman suddenly looked past Wolf and shrieked. Wolf turned to see what she was focused on. One of the EIA workers had a small squirming creature in his arms. As the man neared, Wolf realized that the creature was a child, species so far undetermined, but human looking, perhaps four years old.
Wolf sighed. He had hoped it wouldn't come to this; that he would only have to deal with adult oni. Certainly among all of the elves, there were no children. In fact, he was fairly sure that—not counting his domi's unusual status—Little Horse was the youngest elf in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, when one could breed like mice, one did.
The name tag of the EIA worker holding the child read "U. D. Akavia."
"The child needs to be tested, Akavia," Wolf said.
Akavia's brown eyes went wide; he hadn't considered that the child was anything but what it appeared to be.
"No!" the woman sympathizer cried. "Don't give those monsters my baby!"
Akavia glanced to the woman and then down at the child whimpering in his arms. "She's just a little girl."
"We need to know if she is human or oni." Wolf tried to pose the statement in a nonthreatening way.
"She can't hurt anyone." Akavia covered the girl's small head with a protective hand. His eyes went past Wolf to the sekasha behind him.
Of course the human saw only the child, not the female that would be an adult in a decade, nor the army she could produce in the years to come. In truth, even to Wolf, she looked small and helpless.
"Let us test her," Wolf said. "If she is human, we will give her back."
Akavia's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "And if she's oni?"
Yes, Wolf thought as he scanned the hostile faces of the heavily armed EIA force that outnumbered his sekasha, that would be a problem.
He sensed the tension going through his sekasha, who were growing impatient. He had no doubt that his people would walk unscathed away from a fight with the EIA, but the EIA might not understand this, and he needed all the allies he could muster.
Maynard moved between Wolf and Akavia. Maynard's face set into hard lines, as if bracing himself for a fight. With Wolf or with his own people? "Let us test her."
He left unsaid: Let us at least find out if we have cause to fight. Wolf nodded. "That is acceptable."
"Uri David." Maynard motioned to Akavia. Wolf shifted his shields to include the EIA subordinate so Maynard could take the girl into his arms.
"Wraith." Wolf in
dicated that the sekasha was to hand Akavia the biatau.
Akavia placed the spell against the child's bruised and dusty arm. When the spell activated, there was no change to the girl's appearance. Relief went through the EIA.
"It proves nothing," Wraith growled. "It's probably mixed blood. The female has all but admitted that she's coupled with the monster."
Maynard's gaze skipped to Wraith and then came back to Wolf. Please, his eyes implored, let her go.
Wolf studied the child. She gazed at him with eyes as brown and innocent as his domi's. He didn't want to kill this child. Wolf steeled himself and forced himself to remember that an oni wouldn't waver in killing an elfin child or a human child. His people counted on him to do the right thing, no matter how difficult the right thing might be.
How could he winnow the monster from the human?
"Little one, what's your name?" Wolf asked the girl.
"Zi." The girl pointed to the woman. "Mommy's sad."
"Yes, she is. So am I." Wolf let his face show his inner sorrow.
Zi considered him gravely, and then leaned out to pat him gently on the cheek. "Don't be sad. Everything will be a-okay."
Wolf threw out his hand to keep the sekasha from reacting. "She has compassion; oni don't have that capacity."
Wraith slowly took his hand from his sword hilt. "So human empathy is a dominant trait?"
"So it seems." Wolf gave the girl a slight smile. "Yes, Zi, everything will be A-okay."
5: TREE THAT WALKS
The dying echoes of thunder pulled Tinker out of the dark sludge of drugged sleep. She opened her eyes to see shadows moving across an unfamiliar ceiling.
Where am I?
For one panicked moment, she thought she was back in the oni compound with the kitsune projecting illusions into her mind. She fought her sheets to sit up, heart pounding, to scan the luxurious bedroom. Saijin-induced sleep still clung to her like thick mud, making it hard to think. It took Tinker a minute of comparing all the various places she had slept in the last two months to finally recognize the room. It was the bedroom she and Windwolf had shared a month ago at Poppymeadow's enclave. She remembered now the massive four-poster bed, the carved paneling, and the view to the courtyard orchard. The window stood open to a warm summer morning, letting in air sweet with ripening peaches. Dappled sunlight played across the walls and ceiling. Tinker flopped back into the decadent nest of satin sheets and down pillows, tempted to go back to sleep.
But if she did, she'd probably have another nightmare.
Her groan summoned Pony from his attached bedroom.
"Good morning, domi."
Eyes still closed, she grunted at him. "It's not fair to expect me to be polite before I'm fully awake. Where's Windwolf? Did he get back safely last night?"
"He was needed at the Faire Grounds this morning. He took everyone except Stormsong with him."
"How is Stormsong?"
"Her leg bothers her slightly, but she is whole. She is practicing in the swordhall."
That was good news.
Tinker heaved herself back up and rubbed a heavy crust of sleep from her eyes. "Gods, I hate saijin. It turns my brain to taffy. What's that for?"
That being one of the sekasha's pistols. While the gun itself was of human make, the black tooled leather holster and belt were elfin. Pony laid it on the bed, a coil of dangerous black on the sea of cream.
"Wolf Who Rules wished you to have it."
Oh, yeah, I asked for a gun.
"It is specially made for the sekasha." Pony settled on the bed beside her. "Only parts of it are metal, and those are insulated with plastic, so they don't interfere with our shields. Once you learn magic, it will be important that you don't wear metal."
There was an elaborate system of wood buckles, D-rings, and ties to support the weight of the pistol on the hip without metal. In place of a metal snap, the belt maker had used a heavy plastic substitute.
"Is it loaded?"
"Not yet. I thought you would like to get comfortable with it first."
So they played with the gun. Taking it apart. Putting it together. Strapping on the holster (although it had a tendency to slide on her long silky nightgown.) Drawing the pistol smoothly. Holding it with both hands to keep it steady. Aiming it. And finally, loading and unloading it.
"Wolf Who Rules wants you to start the basics of the sword fighting," Pony said. "It would be unwise for you to wear a sword until you are able to use it. Guns are simple. Point and pull the trigger."
"I'm fine with that." She had no interest in swords. They relied too much on brute force. At five foot nothing, it didn't matter how smart she was, she wasn't going to win a sword fight with an elf. "Okay. I think I'm ready to face the day."
"In that?" Pony indicated her current nightgown and holster outfit.
"I thought I'd start a new fashion statement." Nevertheless, she started to look for the clothes she'd had on the day before. She was going to have to do something about clothes. After being kidnapped twice, she was left with only one T-shirt and one pair of shorts. Everything else in her closet was elfin gowns.
Pony guessed what she was looking for. "They took your clothes to be cleaned."
"Oh no." She went to the window and looked out. Beyond the orchard wall was the kitchen garden and the clothes lines. Windwolf's household staff was hanging up the laundry. Her jeans dangled between several pairs of longer legged pants. Her T-shirt? Oh yes, that had been cut to ribbons by the dragon. "Oh pooh."
Well, she could wear a dress and just go clothes shopping. Of course she didn't have any cash in hand, nor did she ever receive the promised replacements for the ID that the oni stole the night she saved Windwolf's life. It could be sitting in her mailbox back at her loft—if the EIA had been so stupid as to mail it out after she was kidnapped by the oni. Oh gods, what if she'd been declared legally dead after the oni "staged" her death?
She did have Windwolf's entire household at hand. Surely one of the elves was savvy enough to go to the store and buy her clothes. She considered the elves in the garden washing clothes—by hand—in large wooden tubs. Okay, she had clothes at her loft.
Was it a good thing or a bad thing that she was now fashion aware enough to know that those clothes were too scruffy?
Tinker sighed. "I really don't want to run around Turtle Creek in a dress."
"Domi, I would rather wait until we could gather a Hand. It would not be wise for us to go alone."
Tinker wasn't getting the hang of the elfin "we" despite having had Pony at her side every moment for nearly two months. She was thinking of just trotting over by herself and seeing how much the Ghostlands had shrunk. Well, she supposed that could wait.
She used her walk-in closet as a dressing room, stripping out of the gun belt and her nightgown. She considered her informal gowns, called day dresses. She had bullied the staff into taking off the long sleeves, but the dresses still had bodices that accented her chest, tight waists, and flowing skirts. Her choices were sable brown, forest green, or jewel red, all in gleaming fairy silk that clung to her like wet paint. The red one, at least, had pockets and a shorter skirt. She had to admit that she looked fairly kicky with her new gun belt riding low on her hip. She added her polished black riding boots and the ruby jewelry that Windwolf had given her. She practiced drawing her pistol and pointed it at the mirror. "You looking at me? Uh? You looking at me?"
"No, domi, I cannot see you," Pony said from the other side of the closet door.
She laughed, holstering the pistol. "Did Windwolf find the monster that attacked me and kill it?"
"No."
"Okay." She came out of the closet. "Since we can't do anything about Turtle Creek, let's focus on the monster."
"Domi, I do not think we should go after the dragon alone."
"Dragon?"
"It was an oni dragon and very difficult to kill."
"Well, yeah, which is why I should figure out how to kill it. The oni probably have more
than one. There has to be a way to take down its shields so anyone with a gun can kill it."
Pony looked at her nervously, as if he suspected she was going to hunt down the oni dragon and poke it with sticks.
Tinker felt the need to reassure him that she didn't have anything that radical in mind. "I want to start with Lain; she's a xenobiologist. When you've got a problem outside your field of specialty, you go to an expert."
