Nightblade Boxed Set

by Ryan Kirk

  “I’m sorry, Ryuu.”

  Ryuu turned to the sound of a sword being drawn. Ryuu expected his sense to warn him of an attack, but it was gone. He suddenly realized he couldn’t sense anything at all. He turned to see Akira assume a fighting stance and move to cut him.

  Ryuu dove out of the way, feeling his back open up again as he rolled on it. He cursed loudly as he came to his feet.

  “What are you doing?”

  Akira stepped and cut again, and Ryuu stepped out of the way. He couldn’t sense Akira’s attacks, but he had still trained in swordsmanship every day of his life since he was five. Even without the sense, he was a strong fighter, but he couldn’t figure out why Akira was attacking him.

  “This was the final condition of the treaty. That I bring Tanak the head of the nightblade who killed Renzo.” Akira thrust wildly, and Ryuu saw the desperation in his eyes.

  He saw something else too, something he’d been too distracted to notice earlier. Akira’s eyes were red, his body broken. Something clicked in Ryuu’s mind, and he knew Akira had given up hope.

  Ryuu drew his blade and deflected a cut. Akira slashed again, not caring how slow or how obvious his attacks were. Ryuu stepped inside his guard and hit him with the side of his blade, knocking Akira backwards. He came back to his feet, a wild grin on his face, and Ryuu saw Akira had lost everything that mattered to him.

  Akira charged, sword raised high above him. Ryuu stepped in and sliced, causing a sliver of scarlet to open up from his shoulder to his stomach. Ryuu cut twice more, each cut a perfect strike. He finished with a kick to Akira’s chest, knocking him backwards.

  Akira started to get up, but Ryuu brought the tip of his sword to Akira’s neck. “No.”

  Akira looked like he was about to move, but Ryuu pushed the tip closer, drawing blood. He worried Akira would try to impale himself if he got the chance. “I know what you’re trying to do, but I won’t kill you. You haven’t failed, and your people need you. They’ll need you more than ever in the next few moons.”

  Akira broke down, his manic state gone. The tears fell, mingling with his blood on the ground. “End it, please.”

  Ryuu shook his head, snapped the blood off his blade, and sheathed it. He looked around the tent, focusing on Rei. “What about her?”

  “He doesn’t know about her.”

  “Good. When she comes to, tell her I said thank you.” He turned to leave.

  “Ryuu, wait.”

  Ryuu turned at the door.

  “Where will you go? What if I need you?”

  “I don’t know, Akira. I’ll become an outlaw to save your treaty. Hunt me if you must. I’m not sure where I’ll go. I’m not sure there’s any place left for me. But you can’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”

  Without another word, Ryuu left the tent. He still couldn’t use his sense, and the fear in his gut was that somehow he had lost it for good. He walked into the night, hunted by the Azarians and the soldiers of the Three Kingdoms.

  The Wind and the Void

  For Kelly

  Prologue

  General Toro awoke to a cold, crisp morning, the third in a row. Despite the number of cycles he had seen, or perhaps because of them, Toro was fascinated by weather. In the Three Kingdoms, the farther south a traveler went, the warmer the weather became. But Toro was almost as far south as anyone in the Three Kingdoms had ever been, and though the autumn moon had just risen, already he woke to frost covering the ground in the mornings. It was as though the weather was broken. It felt as though the world was broken.

  Toro picked up his sword and tied it around his waist. He pulled the blade out, just a little, to ensure it still came smoothly out of the scabbard. He needn’t have worried. Toro was a man who took care of the details, and his blade, a family heirloom hundreds of cycles old, still shone as though it had just come from the forge. Its presence comforted him. The world around him may shatter, but the sword would remain, solid and unyielding in a world of chaos.

  Toro was grateful even to wake up. Every morning fewer of them did. Every night they came. No matter how many torches were lit, they still found the shadows. They struck at random, and it was becoming commonplace to wake up to find your bunkmate with a slit across his throat or a stake through his heart. Toro had lost dozens of men, but the fear was an even greater threat.

  He took a deep breath, calming himself before the day ahead. Then he stepped out of his tent, disguising his shock at how cold it was outside. All around him, men moved with practiced discipline, purposeful in spite of their fear. Toro took a moment to look around, to recognize and remember the faces in the crowd. When he rejoined the Great Cycle, a day he feared was not long in coming, he would go knowing he was proud of the men he served with. The First was the best of the Southern Kingdom, and he was humbled to be their general.

  Toro began his morning routine. He went to a space in the camp dedicated to practice, an open area that messengers and soldiers avoided walking through. He was pleased to see the space was filled with men practicing. Although the area was crowded, the soldiers all made room for him. He drew a few stares, but by now his men were familiar with his routine.

  Toro drew his blade. He never practiced with wooden swords. He hadn’t for many cycles. Steel was all that mattered. He made a few cuts, warming up his body and mentally checking his form. For as long as he could remember he had been pursuing the perfect cut, the cut that would sing out as he struck. As his body, hardened by cycle after cycle of hard use, started to loosen, his movements and patterns became more intricate. His body remembered every cut, every step. The world around him shrank until it was just him and his sword, and then even that distinction became meaningless.

  When he finished sweat was dripping from his body, but he didn’t even notice. Sights and sounds slowly returned, and Toro was among his men once again. As sometimes happened, some of his men had stopped to watch. Toro still believed he was one of the better swords in the Southern Kingdom. He didn’t have the speed or strength of the younger men, but his experience triumphed over their physical ability. His men were welcome to watch and learn.

  His practice complete, Toro went about the daily business of commanding an army. His first task was to the walls. The First was stationed at Fort Azuma, the fort built by Lord Akira at the southern end of the Three Sisters. Toro walked with his back straight and his head up. Especially in these trying times, his men needed to see their general confident.

  He was greeted by the same sight which had tormented him for the last few days. Out there, in the Azarian plains, beyond the reach of his strongest bow, was a sea of humanity. The Azarians had come with a strength no one in the Three Kingdoms had ever dreamed possible. There were tens of thousands of them, more than could be counted. Men, women, and children. The female nightblade, Moriko, had been right: Azaria had brought their entire nation to make war on the Three Kingdoms.

  If it had just been the clans Toro and his men had gotten used to fighting, it would be different. Fort Azuma covered the entire pass, and during the summer without conflict, its walls had been made taller and strengthened. Though Toro’s troops were outnumbered at least ten to one, they might have held. But the hunters changed everything. It was the hunters that came in the night, unseen, killing his men as though it were a game played among children, a lethal game of hide and seek.

  Toro had no answer to the hunters. He had doubled and tripled patrols, and lit torches throughout the camp until he worried they would run out of fire before they ran out of food. His men still didn’t sleep at night for fear their lives would be taken without a fight. The hunters would break his men long before the army beyond the walls would.

  Toro stared in frustration at the army, thinking that if he just studied them long enough, a solution would come to mind. But none ever did.

  As he watched, a youth ran from the camp towards the fort, bow in hand. The shouts of the warriors behind him carried to Toro’s ears. He shook his head. They played this g
ame every morning. The youth sprinted towards the fort, all alone on the plains that had seen so much death. Toro heard the grunts from the archers that held the wall, but their discipline held. He had ordered them not to shoot at these individual taunts unless their shot was sure. There was no need to waste arrows.

  The youth got close, closer than any who had come before. They are getting bolder, Toro thought to himself. Were they restless in the other camp? The youth aimed at Toro, as they always did. His uniform was different than the rest, and if they didn’t know he was the general, they knew he was important. The arrow flew, a lone dark streak against a cloudless and uncaring blue sky.

  Toro watched the arrow, amazed again by the strength of the Azarian bows and archers. The youth was just inside the edge of his archers’ range, and none of them felt confident enough to take the shot. The arrow dropped down, and Toro instinctively stepped back as the arrow clattered against the stone wall of the fort just below him. The boy had only missed by two paces. Toro shook his head, but waved nonetheless. He might as well torment them a bit while he could. They would come soon enough.

  Toro sat in his tent, going over his correspondence and reports for the day. When he was younger he had thought the role of a general was to give inspiring speeches and lead men into battle. He had never guessed his greatest enemy would be day-to-day paperwork. The process didn’t bring him joy, but it was his eye for detail that kept his army fed, supplied and prepared to fight the enemy who threatened the Southern Kingdom.

  Toro ran his well-practiced hands over the paper, memorizing stockpile information, scouting reports of the surrounding area, and the number of troops and their distribution. He paused to consider the morale reports his commanders had given. The news wasn’t surprising. The men were close to breaking, but Toro had no ideas for stopping the hunters.

  He didn’t consider himself to be an excellent strategist. Lord Akira’s two younger generals, Makoto and Mashiro, were much better. But Toro had a lifetime of experience and could put together disparate pieces of information to create a whole picture of what was happening to his army. Unfortunately, the conclusions he was reaching weren’t pleasant. They were holding, but unless something happened soon, discipline would break.

  Since he had no grand ideas, he pushed the thoughts out of mind. He saved his personal correspondence for last, both because he looked forward to it and because he feared it. Toro opened the unfamiliar letter first, not surprised when he saw it came from his new lord, Tanak. He couldn’t bring himself to put the honorific to Tanak’s name. It was Tanak who had invaded the Southern Kingdom, killed thousands of soldiers, and left Toro alone in the south to defend against the much more dangerous enemy. The man didn’t deserve the title of lord.

  Toro read the letter once in disbelief, then a second time to ensure he hadn’t been imagining the orders the first time. The letter ordered Toro to stand down and retreat from Fort Azuma. The First was to return up the pass where they could meet with Tanak’s advisers to discuss the new command structure of Toro’s army. Tanak would send a small exploratory force down to the fort to meet with any Azarians and negotiate a lasting treaty.

  Toro swore to himself. Tanak’s decision was wrong, and he was placed again in a situation where he had to decide between his duty and the right action. The last time had been in the spring, when Lord Akira had left him here. At the time, Toro thought Akira was making a mistake, but that mistake was now the only thing standing between tens of thousands of Azarians and the Three Kingdoms. Or the Two Kingdoms, whatever they were calling it now.

  The only reason that Toro could imagine Tanak would order the First back was because he didn’t believe Toro’s reports. He must think they were some part of a plot to give the newly merged kingdom into Akira’s hands. But nothing could be further from the truth. If Tanak doubted the sincerity of Toro’s reports, Toro would delight in stationing his new lord on the wall. Then when the arrows started to fall he would at least do some good as a shield.

  He shook his head. Such thinking wasn’t right. Personally, he might detest Tanak, but Tanak was his rightful lord, and as general of the First, he was sworn to obey. But if he did, the Three Kingdoms would lose their best defense. Tanak’s letter implied any possible aggression from the Azarians was due to the Three Kingdoms’ encroachment on their land, but Toro didn’t believe that argument for a moment. You didn’t bring fifty thousand troops to the field of battle to take over a single fort. You sent them to take over a new land.

  Toro pushed his frustrated thoughts aside. The decision could be made later. He glanced with eagerness at the second letter. It bore Lord Akira’s seal and was written in his hand. Toro opened it carefully and found the contents to be much different than those of the first letter. Toro was surprised when he read it. Lord Akira was asking Toro to come home. Not the army, just Toro himself. He knew the next cycle would be a time of great struggle, and he wanted Toro by his side, helping him lead the fight against the Azarians.

  The letter ended on a personal note, discussing Akira’s thoughts on his truce with Tanak. Toro couldn’t fault Akira for his decision to surrender. He wished there could have been a different outcome, but Toro wasn’t sure he could have done better. Lord Akira had made the best decision possible considering the circumstances. It wasn't ideal, but it gave them a chance to survive.

  Toro gently put the letter down, scratching his long beard, lost in thought. The offer was a tempting one. It meant life instead of death, and his heart, still in love with the idea of a long life, begged him to take his lord up on his offer. It was easy to rationalize. He was the most experienced general in both the Western and Southern Kingdoms. His experience was invaluable. But the wiser part of Toro believed the decision and the order were wrong. He was not the best strategist in the Southern Kingdom. If a military solution to the problem facing them existed, it wouldn't come from him but from Makoto or Mashiro.

  Toro believed a general needed to lead his army. It was a part of him, a belief which shaped his life. To abandon his army in the time of its greatest need would be tantamount to spiritual suicide. Even if only a part of his men stayed to defend the fort from the invading army, Toro knew he would remain with the men who stayed and fought. He could not ask any man to lay down his life if he wasn't willing to himself.

  A single tear threatened to moisten Toro's cheek. He wiped it away dismissively, steeling himself for the reply he would have to make. Lord Akira’s offer, generous as it was, had solidified his decision. He lit a new candle, knowing there would be much to say in this letter. It would be the last he wrote to his lord, a man he almost considered a son. He had much to say, and he knew his time was running out. He trusted Lord Akira would be satisfied with his decision.

  Toro got to work, writing his final letter. He found that with his decision made, his soul was more at rest than it had been for some time. He wrote until his candle burned low, and just as night and darkness threatened to overtake his tent, he snuffed it out himself.

  Another morning came, and fewer of his men were alive to see it. After his daily stint on the wall, Toro went down to see the pyre lit for the men who had lost their lives in the night. Toro shook his head. Dying in your bedroll at night, sleeping, wasn’t the way to leave this life. A soldier should die with a blade in his hand, an enemy snarling in his face. This type of warfare had no honor.

  Toro searched the faces around him as the pyre burned the bodies to ashes. The men were tense and afraid, more than he had seen them before. He couldn’t blame them. He felt the same way they did. It was one thing to know you might die in battle the next day, but it was quite another to know, deep in your bones, that if you went to sleep there was a very real chance you might never wake up. It was the fear of the elderly instilled in the hearts of the young.

  As he watched, Toro knew his men only had a few days of discipline left in them. Unless their circumstances changed, it wouldn’t be long before men tried to work their way back through the pass on the
ir own. Here they died in their sleep having accomplished nothing. The worst part was, Toro couldn’t change their situation. Leading a sortie beyond the wall would be suicide and would accomplish nothing, but for now it was the only way to inflict damage on their foe. Toro cursed Nameless, the commander of the Azarians. With hunters, Nameless could pick off his men one by one until they broke. It took longer than a direct attack would have, but it risked far fewer lives. Taking Fort Azuma would be a bloody battle if Nameless used traditional means.

  That afternoon a scout came back from the pass with news. Toro welcomed him into his tent. The scout was obviously cold, and icicles still hung from his uniform. “Sir, there is a blizzard in the pass. It seems likely to stay, sir.”

  Toro considered the news. It was still early for the pass to have so much snow, but not unheard of. It opened up new possibilities for him. If the pass closed with snow early, no army would get through until spring, allowing the Three Kingdoms and Lord Akira more time to prepare a worthy defense after a summer full of war. Toro grinned maliciously. Nameless and his hunters might whittle down his men, but if they continued to take their time, they’d find their progress blocked by the pass itself.

  “How much longer do we have?”

  “Sir, we can’t be sure, but our best guess is three days, maybe less. After that, no army will be getting through the pass.”

  Toro paced his tent. The scout came from a unit which specialized in the Three Sisters. They were older men, experienced in the ways of the mountains and their volatile weather. He had to trust their judgment. If they said three days, three days was all they had.

  “Thank you. Make sure you get some warm food before heading back up.”

  The scout looked grateful. “Yes, sir.”

  Toro wandered the fort, studying his men carefully. They were determined, and they were proud, but they had never faced anything like the hunters before. Many of his men who weren’t on watch were sound asleep, grateful to sleep during the hours the sun shone overhead, protecting their slumber better than their fellow soldiers could at night. With a deep sigh, Toro made his decision. He called the commanders together.