In the dark beyond the light of the fire came the sounds of bird song, like rusted hinges being shut. Insects too, and the rustling of leaves over head. The moon was a single sliver. Yabona tossed another twig onto the little fire she shared with Sai, and watched as the embers danced upward. Savoured the hot crackle that the red hot wood sent forth. Her hat hung upside down above the flame by a crude tripod of foraged sticks as a makeshift bowl, water broiled the rice inside. There would be enough for a mouthful or two for each of them, and then a long and hungry walk in the morning.

Idly, she poked at the embers with another twig, one hand cradling her knee as she sat.

Sai was propped with his back against a normal and healthy tree, by the time the sun had set they were well enough into the area in which the earth still resembled itself. It was not unheard of for the monstrosities to come creeping this far, or further yet, that was the principal reason for the bounty – to thin the herd - but compared to the place they had come from, this exposed little glade by what counted for a road in this once very remote province, was a sturdy castle compound.

The birds, eerie as their nocturnal call may be, were a good sign. If they went quiet she might worry.

Sai had removed his helmet, and this was resting on his knee, he had taken to wearing a headband of late, an off white strip of cloth that served as a classical symbol of determination. Fitting both this gesture and the fashion, he was as self serious as ever, and the white contrasted beautifully with his bronzed skin. His cheeks had grown a hard edge to them and they were covered in a little fuzz, his brows were thick, and his hair was long and course, he tied this into a bun toward the rear of his head. He looked every bit the burgeoning warrior and man he was, but she saw often the boy he used to be.

He with rosy cheeks and bald head, with snot running from his nose, quiet and polite and rigid, until a practice sword graced his hands, and then he became more. Often had she been envious of him, he took to his studies naturally, she felt ungainly and slow in comparison.

His eyes were closed now across from the fire, and he opened one of these, he lingered a moment watching her, and then closed it again. He shuffled a little bit, adjusting the grip he had on his sword which was propped against the ground and his shoulder. He held it like a lover, gentle in one of his arms. That stain on his sleeve, the black blood, that would take ages to get out. She was frowning when he opened his eyes again.

He regarded her for a moment and then, “You are upset.”

She scoffed. “Only because you won't do your own laundry.”

He looked confused, those big bushy brows creased.

Yabona pointed at his sleeve with her charred stick, and he plucked at the stain, still confused. She shook her head and sighed.

Miyo was the same way, the two men in her life would sleep in mud and be content, they'd wear the same shirt until it was thread bare and dyed with their own sweat. Eika had taught her how to wash clothes the right way, so long ago now. Without being aware of it she raised a hand to her collar, fingers in a pinching motion, they met with the upper lip of her green and black breast plate and stopped. The necklace she was subconsciously thinking of was safe at home, too precious to risk on an outing such as this. The sudden and violent loss of that once bright spot in her past, of the inn, still stung, even after all these years. But it was the dull sting of an insect bite that had ceased to swell, but wouldn't yet go away. For a long while she had nightmares every time she laid her head to rest. Now they came seldom. The worst were those dreams in which she returned to the inn with her swords, triumphantly cutting down the horrors of that night as easily as she dispatched Pale Men now.

She'd wake up crying, still feeling Azami's big bear hug. Eika smiling gratitude.

Second were those of that slender giant, but those had gone away for some time now. It pleaded in them, it groped, it left her trembling in her bed full of knowing: there was no solution, all would end in blood and tears. Everything always did. Sometimes the giant spoke, sometimes it did not, but always it tried to communicate, the ultimate message was clear, the specifics, the context, muddled, incomprehensible as dreams so often are. Tears and blood, no compromise, dear God, there had never been any compromise. She shuddered with this recollection by the fire, something crawled up her spine, disc by disc.

“I will wash it when we return,” Sai said, finally comprehending.

Her look was vacant and she began to prod again at the fire. “Sure, sure,” she said.

In short order the rice had absorbed most of the water and was ready to eat, she balled up more than half of it and tossed this to Sai, who caught it with a deft motion, juggling it between his hands for the heat of it. The lesser portion she ate herself. Supper was over in a bite.

“I'll take first watch,” Yabona yawned, and prepared to argue. He would protest, he always did, and he always gave in – just now he was forming that stubborn look, not all that different from the stone mask that was his resting expression, but Yabona knew him well enough to read those minute fluctuations in his countenance. Sai, the little hero, the martyr, the 'I go, you stay' sort of man. For a moment she saw that bald little boy again, and stifled a laugh. Imagined him as he was, small, grim faced, standing vigil over her while she slept. Just like that night at Miyo's, when everything came apart. Her mirth turned tender, he didn't say anything, his subtle stubborn look tweaked slightly into his confused one, his right eye a little more closed than the left, that's what he did when he was thinking, and it was going poorly.

“I'm serious,” she said, her tone light, “you look like hell. Go to sleep.”

He grunted, turned his back to her and the fire as he curled up. He wouldn't take off his armour, and he would pay for it in the morning. He probably wouldn't even sleep, he'd lay there awake and alert. The damn fool. A good partner though, none better. It was not lost to her that she would have been dead many miles back in that strange wood. The Hanged Man was inches away from taking her life, and the way it thrashed, how resilient it had been even with all but one limb severed. Had she landed that thrust before those hands wrapped around her neck, or just plain staved in her rib cage through her armour, she doubted it would have counted for much. Then, so would he have died had he been alone – it hit him hard enough for him to loose his sword, it was difficult not to tease him for this, but she knew there were matters of pride that shouldn't be poked at, that some jokes really could go too far. She sensed something of the like was happening to her Master, that some deep and horrible pain point had been brushed. He was not himself, and he would not speak of what troubled him, he would hardly speak at all, and he had a way now of looking at her that made her feel guilty, somehow. She missed him though he was still there.

Their grim bounty lay in a heap just outside of the fire, a little shadowed mound of severed heads with that leg draped over top. At least they could survive another month now, maybe longer. Those initial years with the surge of everyone fleeing every which direction had been rough, for a good while there was no order, and there was no sun.

Despite the adequate heat from the fire, she felt her self turn cold – she recalled an image a year, maybe it had been a full year, it was hard to mark the passage of days without the sun, after the collapse, of distended pot-bellied men and women laying where they fell on the side of the ash dusted road. Food had been hard to come by, crops would not grow. Hunting, plunder, and theft were the only options for a long while. She was proud that not once had their trio, their new little family, stooped to getting their meal at the tip of a sword, though this in truth was more luck than virtue. Miyo had always come up with something, even if it was a bundle of bitter roots, or writhing insects. If ever could he not, Yabona did not doubt that the old man would have taken from innocents for them – and it would have broke him, as surely as he was broken now. How to get him to talk? To come back to life?

The fire crackled. She added another stick.

After some time Sai ceased pretending to sleep, and Yabona actually did sleep.

**

Birds sang, insects chittered, leaves rustled in this verdant valley. The horror of the dead tract was a full day behind them, that encircling band that threatened to choke all sensible life. It had ceased growing, of late, but there was no guarantee that it would not wake and continue to eat. Here in the rustic village with the old thatched roofs and aged wood dwellings, none more than a single story, it was hard to reconcile that the world had, indeed, ended. That the bustle before her, the shouts and cheers and sun was nothing but posthumous twitching. It almost felt like a home, and this made her feel dread. Every one of those had been taken from her, so too would this one.

The village was nestled into the floor of a narrow valley, and it was so thick with broad leafed trees it was hard to spot from the winding trail that snaked up the valley on approach. This entire province was thickly vegetated and full of minor mountains and rough terrain. When the Empire stood to full height, this had been an overlooked back water, the people here had scarcely changed in a millennia, now it was the Empire, all of it. Somewhere over that ridge, and then the next one and perhaps even the one after that was an old wooden castle, this Yabona knew from rumour, to be the new seat of imperial power. It's where Koji sent forth his toll collectors, it's from where the crude wood or stone tokens that replaced the old standard metallic currency came from – all metals had been confiscated in the last month, even down to coinage, these materials too precious to waste on something like money, they were spear tips or arrow heads or swords now. All the tools of the farmers had been taken too, they toiled now only with crude wooden implements. But they toiled. Last year was the first harvest that could be had since the dark, meagre though that harvest was, it was a blessing.

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The village would have been quiet in better days, but it was bustling now. Nearly everyone who had survived the cataclysm sheltered in valleys just like this, in villages now over occupied, spilling out into the woods in little camps, little hovels. There wasn't a great many people, but enough that the little circle stomped clean of grass around a well was packed. The largest building here had been taken over by officials from the castle, it's where they housed all the food stuffs slotted to the people of this village. The building once belonged to the headman, and it was where Yabona and Sai were now headed, with their bounty.

They drew looks, some wary, some impressed. Some saw their gruesome trophies and nearly tripped getting out of the way.

Inside of the former headmans house a man sat behind a low table, keeping inventory on a crude bamboo slat, he twitched when he saw them enter. Went pale at the sight of the things draped over their shoulders, at their road worn hard fought look.

Sai bowed.

“Brought you something,” Yabona said, smiling, and she dropped the heads on the smooth recently swept floor. Sai added the Hanged Man's leg.

“I see,” the clerk said. Yabona did not like him, he was polite to her, to Sai, but she knew the little man was a proper bully when it came to the farmers, to the refugees. It was her swords, her armour that he cowed at.

“What do we have...” he said, craning his neck, pointing with his still dripping brush and counted the severed heads. “Seven, and that – my...” His breath caught. “Would you two be so kind as to wait a moment?” And he was up and scurrying off into the back rooms. When Yabona Sai and Miyo had first come to this village, the headman had welcomed them, had allowed them to sleep on the very floor on which they had just deposited their bounty. It had been dusty then, but warm, homely. It was sterile now. The headman had since died, of a cold, a mundane though no longer common death; most died violently now. His family could not protest the government possessing their home. They slept among the other families now, shifting from home to home, trying to spread the burden of their lives evenly across their more than welcoming hosts.

The clerk returned with a severe looking man, tall, broad shouldered. He wore his hair very traditionally, two large tear drops shaved smooth towards the front, and a tight short knot tied in the back. He was armed, and the wrap around the hilts of his swords was rich and red, with gold diamonds running along. His robes were clean, and flared at the shoulders. This man was a new face, but there was no doubt he came from the castle. He looked at the severed leg, and then at Sai, passing over Yabona.

“You did this?” The man asked Sai.

“It was mostly her,” Sai said, and he gestured with his head and thumb at Yabona. This curtailed her inevitable outburst.

“It was a joint effort, my lord,” Yabona said with the proper kind of bow she had learned to show visiting dignitaries at Gin's. There would be no use in aggravating the warrior, he was full of himself, judging by that posture, the clean clothes, the look of his eye, the way he set his feet. She knew he could fight, just by that alone.

The man crooked an eyebrow at her. “This is a world changed,” he said, and left it at that. He returned his gaze to Sai, and Yabona saw the man look at Sai's swords, and his armour, at the helmet now in the crook of Sai's arm. “You realize what you two have done?”

Sai said nothing.

“Killed what you could not?”

The man smiled at Yabona, it crept across his tight face and up her spine, it was reptilian. His eyes lit up. “What a few peasants masquerading as scouts could not perhaps, but not I. Regrettably I have been kept at the castle, serving my lord as he sees best. Soon I will get my chance however, and so will you...” He cocked his head at Sai.

“Sai, my lord.”

Yabona did not offer her name, though the man did not look at her.

“Sai, yes. Well, what you have done is proven yourself a very useful tool.”

“Pardon, your lord?”

“I admit I'm surprised a young man like yourself hasn't joined us already, I'm afraid I will have to insist. I've been instructed to pick what men seem able, and you, are obviously able.” He nodded to the severed leg of the Hanged Man.

“I cannot, my lord. I am needed elsewhere,” Sai said, and he bowed, brought his closed fist to his chest. A proper warriors salute. Looking down as he was Sai could not see the sudden dark look on the warriors face, but Yabona could. She tensed, she had to stop herself from reflexively placing a hand on her sword, that would only make things worse. He wasn't looking at her, but she knew he was watching her all the same.

“I insist,” the man said.

The clerk was fading into the back ground, pretending to count some sacks of rice.

“Forgive me, I have duties,” Sai did not rise from his bow.

“Do you know who I am?”

“I do not, lord.”

“I speak with the authority of the the Crown General. When I insist, it is command.”

Sai held his tongue, did not rise from his bow. The man approached, placed a hand on Sai's shoulder. Sai jerked back, his head shot up, and he glared.

“Good,” The man crooned, “we need killers. Are you a killer?”

“No, lord,” Sai through barred teeth. He had a dangerous glint in his eye.

Yabona took care to stay very still, there had to be a way to diffuse this situation. Sai was loosing his temper, and before them was a man to whom disobedience was clearly unfamiliar. She thought she understood Sai's reluctance, quality of life had not exactly improved with the coming of Koji Katori – she too felt the sting, the injustice, but was lashing out worth her own life? Sai's?

The man frowned.

“Then you will relinquish your blades, the General needs every weapon he can muster, and if your arm won't swing that sword, we will find one who will.” He reached for the hilt of Sai's sword, and Sai drew, hitting the man in his abdomen with the hilt, and the man grunted, reached out of Sai's wrist, but was pushed back with a sharp shoulder. Sai brandished his sword, the man stood off, traced a slow half circle in front of Sai, one hand on his own scabbard, the other poised to draw.

“Stop!” Yabona yelled, but she had drawn as well. “We don't have to kill each other.”

It was in vain.

The man dashed, he gave no indication that he intended to do so. One second he was a cat on a leisurely stroll, the next he was in rapid motion. He drew as he closed in on Sai, intending to use the same motion to cut. It did not work, for all his speed and surprise he was outmatched.

The man's hand fell to the floor with a wet thud, his sword followed.

Sai held the high guard, blood dripped from the blade held level with his eye.

Yabona marvelled. She had hardly seen Sai move, and then, looking at her friend's face, at the grin, she felt sick.

The man did not scream. Gone was his predatory grin, replacing it was the confusion of a baby doe. His agape mouth asked how without words. He was bleeding profusely. The clerk turned now, and shrieked, he ran over and used the long arm of his robes to wrap the red stub. The man pushed the clerk with enough force to cause him to fall over. With disbelief still stamped on his face he stumbled to the door, cast one last look at Sai, and left, a trail of blood in his wake.

Sai sheathed his sword. Yabona was slower in following.

“You shouldn't have done that,” she said.

“I know.”

“It was a mistake.”

“I know.”

“This won't be the end of it, even if he bleeds out this won't be the end of it.”

“I said I know!” And the force of his voice caused her to shrink back. He looked guilty immediately, his eyes apologized in place of his mouth. There was nothing more to say, come what may, she would stand by him, even if they sent the entire garrison. She sighed.

“Clerk,” Sai said in his usual deep but soft tone.

The little man jolted, still on the floor, blood now all down his black robes. He was scrambling up to his knees and trembled.

“We have a bounty to collect.”

The clerk finished rising, he went to his table and spilled out a lock box of the crude new currency, quickly calculating their pay out.

“We will take a bag of rice,” Sai said, “and a jug of wine, if you have one.”

“Y-yes, I mean I do, personally, I will get it!” He let them take the rice as he ran to the back of the house, he returned with a jug of wine. He deducted the cost from their pay out, and isolated some few tokens from the large pile on the table. “You have some left over, my lord.”

“Will it be of any use?” Sai asked,

“My lordship?”

“It's given by the Crown General. I have just disgraced one of his men. Will we even be able to spend it?”

“His Lordship will be displeased, I do not doubt,” the clerk began, and then in a rush, “b-b-but you acted in self defence, it was all proper and of the law, I saw it. I swear it. I will swear it.” He was tripping over himself, on the verge of tears, palms pressed and bowing.

“You do not have to plead. Say what you must to save yourself, I am sorry for the difficulty this will bring you. I lost my temper.”

They left quickly and quietly. In the winding uphill wood, on their way to their home, Sai turned to Yabona, he had been walking ahead of her, pointedly avoiding her gaze.

“Don't tell Master about this,” he said.

She had no words for him.

The sun was setting and the path was growing dark.