It was a frosty morning when the arrow impaled itself into the pillar mere inches from Hideo’s face. He was late for training with Xerxes, pacing through the temple courtyard, hoping to avoid another slashing, but the arrow had left him as frozen as the icy pillars that surrounded him. He turned to see a woman standing there with dark shaggy hair and a strange, unnatural grin. A sapphire bow was dangling from her fingertips.
“Are you insane?” Hideo called out. “You nearly killed me!”
The Archer in black tilted her head to the side, giving a perplexed look. “You would be lying in the snow with an arrow in your head if that was my intention.”
“And what was the intention?”
She shrugged. “I’m bored.”
Hideo stared at her in confusion. He looked ahead and carried on walking, hoping to ignore the bizarre encounter. Another arrow impaled itself into the wood of the next pillar, once again inches away from his face. He sharply turned to see her standing there, still aiming her blue bow, a wooden arrow pulled back.
“Stop doing that,” Hideo demanded. He pulled the arrow out of the pillar and snapped the wooden shaft in half with his knee. The woman grimaced and fired again. This time, the arrow hit the snow below Hideo’s feet. He jumped away, fleeing from the viper’s strike. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he snapped.
The Archer scowled at him. “Why has everyone been asking me that today?”
“Leave me alone.” Hideo turned to walk away but felt an arrow pierce the fabric of his jacket, just below the skin of his arm. The force of the arrow pulled him forward as it impaled into the next pillar, leaving him pinned there. Hideo looked at the arrow, wedged into his clothes in horror and also amazement of the shot. He looked back to see the smug Archer with the now-empty bow in her hands.
“That was for being unchivalrous,” she said.
Hideo tried pulling the arrow out.
“I saw you in the arena the other day,” she continued as Hideo kept pulling at the end of the arrow. “You shied away from killing the Hell Pig.”
Hideo finally pulled the arrowhead out and threw it in the snow. “The beast was wounded. Why end it if it was no longer a threat?”
“Because you were supposed to,” she answered. “Do you know why they caught that particular creature?”
“No,” he answered, looking at the hole the arrow left just below his sleeve. It would be unlikely for him to be gifted another jacket so soon.
“It went into a secluded home in eastern Arkovia,” the Archer continued as she picked up her arrows, “and ate the family that lived there. A husband, wife, and three children. It’s the dangers of living outside of the cities, I suppose, but when one Night Fang discovered this and captured it, the Empress felt the fighting pit was a just punishment.”
“It’s a beast,” Hideo said dryly. “It didn’t do it out of pure malice. It did it because it was hungry.”
“You see,” she interrupted, the smug smirk returning to her face, “what you just described was most of the men I’ve killed.” She turned and walked away into the snowy mist.
When Hideo entered the training room in the darkest depths of the sapphire spirals, he found Xerxes standing by a wooden dummy with an axe embedded in it. The Thane was wrapping his fist in a bandage. “You are late, Craven Brother,” he said without looking. “This pleases me.”
This meant Xerxes would spend more time performing the fighting moves of a Night Fang on Hideo rather than teaching him how they were done.
The Sunderranion fang wasted no time, launching a bandaged fist into the side of Hideo’s head. This was not the first time he had pulled that trick. Hideo jumped back to Xerxes’ dismay. He launched another fist, but Hideo managed to grab it, wrapping his hand around the knuckle. The Tiger’s Grip was the name of the move Hideo used, and if done right, could incapacitate someone’s hand for a lifetime. The Thane wasn’t expecting it. Hideo pulled Xerxes’ fist backwards. Any other man would have been screaming, but Xerxes never seemed to be respondent to pain. Xerxes did an upward kick into Hideo’s lower abdomen, but the Novice managed to jump away before impact was made.
“Impressive,” Xerxes admitted.
Hideo was awestruck. This was the first-time Xerxes, or any Night Fang for that matter, had praised him since being here. Hideo’s unfamiliar warm feeling distracted him from the kick Xerxes threw into his shin. Hideo winced and backed away.
“Not so impressive,” the Thane sighed. “If you arrived earlier, perhaps you would have been spared this beating.”
“I was held up by a strange woman firing arrows at me,” Hideo explained through desperate pants.
Xerxes laughed. “Ah, Amaya I presume? Don’t let her brazenness fool you. She is one of the Fraternity’s finest archers.”
“I noticed,” Hideo muttered to himself as he stood back to his feet, regaining some of the wind that was outed from him.
“A turncoat, sadly,” the Thane continued. “But what the Sisterhood of Bows lost, the Night Fangs gained.”
“She’s from another clan?” Hideo’s curiosity got the better of him as Xerxes launched another kick into his stomach. Hideo fell flat on his back and when he looked up, he saw the edges of Xerxes’ long silver tiger claws inches away from his neck. The warrior called Steel Lion prided himself on his signature weapons. Three long claws of smooth silver were donned across each of his knuckles, each blade as long as a short sword and as hungry for blood as a pack of raptors.
“Your opponents will not be so eager for idle gossip, Craven Brother,” Xerxes excoriated. “But yes, she was a clan deserter, just like your sister. The Empress granted her to serve us all the same. She’s a novice, a new fang who has not been here much longer than you.”
Xerxes offered his unarmed hand to Hideo, who begrudgingly accepted. They sparred for an hour more before Hideo was called to meet with Her Sapphire Highness. Every time he ascended towards the throne room in Sabre’s, Fort Hideo felt uncomfortably cold. He did not know what he had been summoned for but could only pray it was because the Empress would be granting him a mark. He felt the new curved cuts sting across his torso from his sparring. Hideo hated the tiger claws. He would howl in pain when he bathed tonight.
The throne room of Darkfall was a fearsome chamber. Steel statues of the horned tiger guardians stood watching any who entered with jewelled eyes. The Empress’ royal samurai guards were donned in silver. They stood in formation in front of the stairs leading to the throne itself, a wall of shining light. Each samurai was adorned in steel kabutos. They wore masks of steel, moulded into the shape of fanged jaws with curved teeth made of sapphire. Only their judgmental eyes were visible as Hideo approached the throne. They think me an unworthy weakling. Hideo had hoped to find a home, a family or somewhere he belonged when he joined the ancient fraternity. Instead, he felt just as alone as he did in New Jade City. Perhaps he was cursed to remain a pariah.
The Empress was sitting on her stone throne that was encrusted with the darkest of ruby, jade, and sapphire gems. Her zaffre hair seemed to waver in the wind despite there being no draft. As she rose, Hideo noticed her sapphire kimono had black markings of the Night Fang beasts in combat with what he assumed to be the demonic one.
Xerxes stood by her throne, staunchly at her side with his arms folded. His silver lion helm was donned, and when it shined in the dimly lit throne room, it looked as if he were a growling monster, half man, half wildcat, the silver mane of his helm stretching out into lightning bolts at the back.
He did not know when or how she appeared, but when Hideo glanced over to his side, he saw the Archer that taunted him earlier standing beside him, now in a hooded sapphire jacket and cloak. She turned to him and smiled, but Hideo failed to utterly understand the meaning behind it.
They both knelt before the Empress. There was no comely demeanour that Hideo first saw on her when he first arrived but the hardened face of a ruler. What wasn’t different was her ghostly pale face. “Rise,” she commanded, and they obeyed. “The two of you are our newest fangs, and it is now time to truly prove yourselves. Today you are to be given a mark and you will ride out together to end his tale.”
“We are sharing a mark?” Amaya objected, far too brazenly. “Your Eminence, I have proven myself with my bow. The Night Fang beasts themselves never used to hunt in packs.”
“Amaya Kantanarro, your skill in archery and hand-to-hand is immaculate,” the Empress complimented, but with a voice of hard ice. “But loyalty is something we cannot identify within you. Not here. We need to further identify how you and Hideo survive outside the walls of Darkfall, together. If you return successful and with your honour intact, then we may discuss your future potential.”
“Forgive me, Your Eminence, but what exactly do you mean by that?”
“It means we don’t trust you yet, turncoat,” Xerxes bluntly interjected. Even from behind the silver lion helm his voice boomed across the throne room. “If you abandon your cause and run back to your sisters, the Craven Brother will report this predictable outcome to us. If neither of you return, we can assume that you killed him, or he turned tail with you. We have risked a lot by allowing you into our fraternity and you know it.”
“You mean to tell me that Hideo is the one keeping an eye on me?” Amaya flared and pointed directly at him. She did not seem to care that he could hear every word that she was saying. “I’ve been here longer than he has. I fight better than he fights. He has more scars across his torso from Xerxes’ claws than I have teeth-”
“Enough.” The Empress did not shout, but her tone brought the silence of snows to the throne room. “Unlike you, Hideo is smart enough not to question my authority. He might not match you in skill but in etiquette, he bests you easily. This may not be your first clan, but in the eyes of the Night Fangs, you are still a novice and no more experienced than he is. You will help each other out there. It matters not to me which one of you swings the bleak blade, just that the deed is done and in the shadows. Am I understood by both of you?”
If Amaya had further objections, she dared not make them known. She agreed with stiff courtesy. “I understand, Your Eminence.”
The Empress turned to Steel Lion. “Xerxes, educate them on the mark. The Night Fangs will be relinquishing from this dark world.”
“A notoriously vile captain of mercenaries from Ravenhelm City that goes by the name Alker Stringer.” The Thane sauntered past the throne, his godly arms still folded. “He and his band of brigands have been making their way further north. They passed New Jade City two months back. We last tracked them in our homelands making camp by Basilisk Point. You should find a warm trail still there.”
“You need not know the deeds that placed him on our list,” the Empress added. “Just know that he and his sorry men like to unwind from their contracts by burning down any villages they chance to come across. I will not allow this in Arkovia, not in our land and against our people. We have enough of this vileness from the Stone Ronin.”
“You wish us just to end Alker’s life only, Your Eminence?” Hideo respected asked.
“Cut off the head and the body will fall,” the Empress prophesied. “You should be aware of this rule already, but I shall utter it again. The only lives that end are the ones that I have marked. No more, no less. There is balance to death and if you indulge yourself in bloodlust, then you are not part of our order. You are a savage. Now begone.”
Hideo and the Archer bowed and left the Empress and the Thane’s presence. When the great stone doors closed behind them with a thunderous clasp, Hideo turned to her with a smirk. “When and why did you get a look at my torso?”
“The moment the moon rears its face, we ride,” she declared icily, ignoring the jibe.
“Surely, we should just ride out now. We won’t make it to Basilisk Point by this night. We should ride the night out, camp out and follow their trail at dawn, ready to strike on the next.”
She turned to face him, and it became clear that her smiles were meant as slights. “Very well. You are here to babysit me, after all.” She stormed off.
Hideo returned to his chambers and donned his royal blue jacket, leg wraps, black boots, and shrouded fukumen, which he pulled over his face. It would be a cold journey and not just with the tension between him and this cantankerous Archer.
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They rode down the Monsoon Mountain in silence. The icy slopes were steep enough to make Hideo sweat under his shroud when their horses descended upon them, but he foolishly forgot that these horses were bred by Night Fangs and could hold their own well enough. The Archer had her sapphire bow slung across the back of her cloak alongside her black quiver that had sapphire stripes streaked across it like lightning. Hideo knew she was Arkovian, but her accent seemed to be further south of the supercontinent. He decided to ask if she had grown up here in an attempt to break barriers. Hideo did not receive an answer from her. The descent down the mountain was the worst part, a slow and arduous process made worse by the icy winds that would bite into the skin like a snake made of ice.
They made camp halfway down. Amaya set up a fire in brooding silence whilst Hideo went hunting for food. Game was scant on the desolate mountain. Fortunately, he eyed a bird of prey perched atop a nearby rock not far from camp. A microraptor that ostentatiously displayed its four raven-black wings in the blizzard. When Hideo returned to ask Amaya for her bow to bring it down, she flared again. “Let us make one thing clear,” she said with wildfire in her eyes, “you are never to lay a finger on my bow. I don’t care if it’s forbidden for one fang to harm another. Touch it and I will remove your fingers.” Those were the first words she uttered to him on their journey. She insisted on bringing the bird down herself. She took it out with just one shot. When the arrow penetrated, dark feathers floated around them with the snowflakes followed by the soft thud of the microraptor’s corpse hitting the white sheet of snow. Hideo complimented her on the shot, but she once again ignored his attempts at being friendly. Aside from the Empress and Xerxes, she is still the only other Night Fang that has spoken more than three sentences to me so far. The thought was as cold as the snows they slept on. Hideo still did not doubt her animosity towards him, even after she insisted that they huddle together for warmth during the night. Hideo would have sooner cradled a boulder, but they both knew they might not make it to morning if they did not use each other’s warmth.
They left at first light. When the goliath Monsoon Mountain was finally behind them, their horses whinnied as they picked up speed. A small storm of snow gathered behind their hooves as they rushed across the white wastelands and towards the Tandra Forest. The forest itself was a sea of dead trees. What might have been a flourishing and tropical verdant land a millennium ago was now a graveyard for leaves and long-dead beasts amongst silent snows. They underestimated how far away they were from Basilisk Point. They were still in the Tandra when night fell again. Fortunately, the Empress had not ordered the mark to be ended by a specific time, but the longer they took, the colder the trail would get and the more likely Alker and his mercenaries would potentially find and harm more Arkovians.
Amaya seemed to be aware of this as she muttered curses to herself whilst sharpening her arrowheads over the campfire under the dead trees. Some words in Arkovian, some in the common tongue of the Midlands. As she was the sole proprietor of her bow and arrow, she took over hunting duties. Hideo was cleaning both their bladed weapons when she returned, but an hour later, a prongdeer flung over her shoulders, its small front fangs gleaming in the moonlight under its black, lifeless eyes. The third horn on its forehead was missing the tip. They ate better that night and Amaya had found the creature supping by a half-frozen lake where their thirst could also be quenched.
The moon had turned, and the sun had shone with the first light, splitting through the dead pine trees when Hideo had discovered the footprints. They were not the kind he had hoped for. These footprints were three metres wide and displayed claws the size of daggers and led towards the edge of the Tandra. The further the tracks went, the more blood drops were sprinkled over the snow. “It can’t be,” Hideo muttered in disbelief. A strong shiver came upon him.
“They’re a rarity, but I suppose the Tandra presents good game,” Amaya observed. “Perhaps we’re lucky and the Nanuqsaurus ended our mark for us.”
“You’re travelling with me, Amaya. They’ll be no luck here.” To Hideo’s dismay, he noticed that his comment had made the Archer crack the slightest smile.
“The only way to know for sure is to follow the track,” she said, almost in excitement.
“Do you have a death wish, or do you just wish to see me get eaten?”
“We dealt with a microraptor easily enough.” She leapt onto her white stallion and took the reins. “A Nanuqsaurus isn’t too dissimilar, just larger and angrier.”
The third night fell when they found a village that their map identified as Salmonsing. Half a dozen homes of wood and bamboo were sprawled across the snows. When they first sighted the village, Hideo insisted that they change their garb to that of normal civilians. There was ultimately no need. The homes were deserted and alone.
The tracks had stopped shortly before, but Amaya located new tracks, those of wagons that stretched from the centre of Salmonsing and beyond the white hills on the horizon. They did not find any remains outside the homes but inside them, furniture had been toppled, food was rotting, covering the walls and ornaments were broken and discarded. “The villagers left in a hurry?” Hideo suggested.
“The villagers were taken in a hurry,” Amaya concluded.
The third night fell when they found both the beast and their mark ten miles from Basilisk Point by a small forest of withered pine trees where the leaves still desperately clinched to dwindling life. The snow around the camp had dissipated from fire and bootsteps. Alker Stringer and his band of marauders had constituted an array of iron cages which stood behind their campfire. The chilling sounds of hisses and sharp clangs made it clear what was in the largest. A serrated snout would emerge from the darkness within, from time to time, but what disturbed Hideo the most was who they had in the rest of the cages.
There were both men and women, covered in dirt and rags and with no hope in their eyes. Alker’s armed men were sitting around a campfire, all wearing armour that most likely never belonged to them and carrying swords that were rusty and stained with old blood.
One of the mercenaries with a brick-shaped head and a swampy beard stood to his feet and walked over to the largest cage, slung out his member, and began to piss through the bars. The other mercenaries started laughing uncontrollably whilst some of the captives whimpered in their cages as the angered hisses snapped back from the darkness behind the bars. The mercenary matched their mark’s description. Alker jumped back, raised his arms proudly and bragged, “I piss on giants!”
Hideo looked questionably at Amaya, who had her eyes fixed on the captured villagers. He heard the Empress’ cold words whisper through the snowflake-speckled wind. If you indulge yourself in bloodlust, then you are not part of our order. You are a savage.
He noticed that Amaya had already drawn her bow and was pulling back a steel arrow. Hideo pulled it down. “We can only kill Alker.”
“You would allow these marauders to take the villagers away?”
“Of course not,” Hideo sternly objected. His voice was muffled, his blue fukumen tightened to the point of making his head burst else his tongue turn to ice. It perplexed him that the Archer did not seem phased by the chill. Perhaps her hatred for these men kept her warm. “We wait until most of them sleep, subdue the lookouts, non-lethally, end Alker and then free the villagers.” For the first time in a long while, Hideo felt his self-esteem grow at the tactical plan. It was logical, and safe, and would avoid as little bloodshed as possible. Perhaps even Xerxes would be proud of me.
“It’s a wonderful plan, Hideo,” Amaya complimented in admiration. “But I hate traffickers.” Amaya raised her bow and started to aim. As Hideo started objecting, he presumed that Amaya meant to fire the arrow at one of the mercenaries, keeping watch over the distance. Then he noticed the sapphire arrowhead turn further and further west, further away from Alker and the men around the campfire and closer to…
No, he began to panic, his heart accelerating. Spirits make her aim go off! A pure icy fear gripped him, but it was too late. The Archer let her fingers on the string loosen and set the arrow free. The steel bird hurtled through the wind, slicing snowflakes in half and whistling a foreboding song. The lock on the cage broke with a clang and the chain that held it all in place dragged against iron and crashed into the snow. Alker was the first to notice what was about to happen, the chuckling as dead and forgotten as the trees that surrounded them. The others stood to attention, some cursed, others backed away, but no one ran, perhaps because running would be a surer way to die.
The cage door had been head-butted open. The serrated snout emerged first with curved teeth disjointedly sticking out from all sides. It stood to its bent, grey, bird-like legs. The nearby campfire illuminated its white feathers.
Black stripes were streaked over its head and across its feathered tail and torso. It no longer hissed. That was the worst part. The sounds that did not feel like sounds. Hideo could feel its murmurs vibrating through the ground.
One marauder loosened an arrow which caught the beast in its lower neck. It snapped its head forward and stomped towards him. Before the marauder could turn to flee, the beast locked him into its serrated jaws and flung him around like a screaming rag doll. Alker bellowed commands to attack as another man charged at the snow reptile from behind with a scimitar. After one slash across the back of its lower grey leg, the beast nonchalantly kicked him back, and he went flying across the wind and into the trunk of a dead elm tree. He no longer moved after that.
“What have you done?” Hideo asked in disbelief as they watched from the hill they were perched atop of.
Amaya observed the surviving marauders shout, scream and charge to slay the gigantic creature which would kick the attackers from behind and snack on the ones in front. “Enough of the show,” she announced, ignoring his condemnation. She jumped and slid down the white hill. Hideo followed her in a sprint. The Archer had eradicated any hope of stealth or subtlety and Alker’s men had a preoccupation in the form of an enormous, feathered snow beast. If they would notice the Night Fangs, they would have no availability to deal with them.
Hideo approached the first cage to the east and drew his katana. The villagers cried out in fear, many of them reaching through the bars and grabbing him, pleading. Pleads in Arkovian of “Help us!”, “Free us!”, and curses of “Blue Wraith!”, and “Night Demon!”. Hideo focused on cutting the chain open which proved taxing when being pulled and grabbed from all sides by a dozen desperate hands. He succumbed to glancing through the bars where his eyes met that of a young woman around his own age. Locks of her hair had frozen, the edges tinted with icicles. “They have my brother!” she tried yelling over the cries of others.
The chain broke and fell, and the steel bars swung open. The villagers stampeded through, knocking others over. The one with icicles in her hair lingered when the rest had fled. Hideo could still feel the beast’s murmurs vibrate through him.
“I’ll find him,” Hideo promised, grabbing her by the shoulder. “Now leave.” She ran.
He turned his attention to the next cage that had already been opened by Amaya. Villagers scattered and ran as the Nanuqsaurus flung its head around and stomped mere metres away from them. The ground shook and white specks would fly into the air and descend again like dust in the wind. The mercenaries were now using flaming torches to keep the beast at bay. It only worked temporarily. When one of them got sloppy, the creature would notice the gap and snap its snout around the mercenary’s torso.
Hideo eyed the last cage, which was, unfortunately, closest to the battle, based under a dead linden tree. He bolted through the snow and was swiftly tackled. A rock was hidden under the snow that Hideo’s head smacked against. He cursed his luck once again as he found his mark atop of him with his hands around his throat. Alker Stringer gleefully grinned behind his swampy beard. “Ninja!” he yelled in sadistic amazement. As the air escaped him, Hideo reached towards his belt and carefully slid the curved dagger from the sheath. He might have outdone Amaya with his level of ungracefulness as the mercenary immediately caught sight of the blade and latched onto it with his stubby hands. They struggled and tumbled, leaving a long, deep trail in the snow. Hideo could feel the Nanuqsaurus’s murmurings vibrating under them. The snows they tumbled through rumbled. “Sneaky ninja,” his mark rasped, his spittle hitting Hideo in the eye.
The arrowhead burst through Alker’s neck, and his grin turned upside down. Blood escaped his mouth and dripped down his beard. He slumped over Hideo and when the sneaky Ninja pushed him off; he found Amaya standing over him with a cold look. “I suppose it was up to me to ‘swing the bleak blade’ then.”
She offered her hand to Hideo, and they both fled to the final cage, which to his surprise the remaining villagers had already broken through whilst everyone was caught up in the haste of battle. They fled in separate directions in ragged clothes, most of them running through the snow either barefoot or in ripped shoes. Hideo caught sight of one youth with a shaved head using a broken tree branch as a weapon against a surviving marauder who was bloody and wounded, haphazardly swinging a tomahawk in vague directions. Amaya pulled an arrow from her quiver and ended it. With the state the mercenary was in, the Archer did him a service.
Hideo cautiously approached the freed captive, raising his blue-gloved hands in the air to show peaceful intentions. He noticed the similarities in the eyes and pointed structure of the face and the same desperate look he had seen back at the first cage. “Do you have a sister?” Hideo asked steadily.
His eyes seemed to react to it and he swung the branch at him and the Archer, frantically yelling in Arkovian. “What have you done to her?” he yelped repeatedly.
“Hideo, we haven’t the time,” Amaya urged.
Hideo raised his hands higher and took a step closer. “She’s safe. She ran east. I can take-”
An iron arrow hurtled through the blizzard and hit the brother in the chest. He dropped into the snow with a soft thud and the flakes swiftly covered him in a white blanket.
Hideo cursed behind his fukumen and drew the only blade he had left, a small, curved dagger in his belt that Alker had tried and failed to pry from him. He had lost his katana in the struggle. It was out there buried in the white, along with the fallen villager who had left a sister behind. The last marauder stood by the middle cage with a gleeful look of pride on his face over the arrowshot. Snow and blood covered his boiled leather armour. He reached to his quiver again to try to outdo himself.
Amaya reached back for hers, but before the sapphire arrow could be nocked, Hideo had already thrown the curved blade through the wind. The blade spun in the air, not dissimilar to a small silver acrobat, where it placed itself into the forehead of the mercenary. That was the second man Hideo had killed, but before realisation could settle with him, the ground vibrated with murmurs.
The Nanuqsaurus was done with the marauders. Its mane of white and black feathers prickled, and its small green eyes narrowed as it saw the Night Fangs standing helpless in the snow. The mercenaries had done some damage as it limped towards them. One of its grey legs was dragging behind and twitching, with several plumes of various arrows sticking out. Amaya fired an arrow of her own. The beast simply shrugged it off.
Hideo raised his small, curved dagger in a defensive stance. There would be no use running. I’ve shamed you, Hiroko, I’ve shamed our whole family. The vibrations felt stronger as the black and white reptile was only a few steps from them. Its bare, grey snout opened, revealing rows of crooked, daggered fangs. Before it snapped towards him, a swarm of crows flew into and around the beast’s entire body. When Hideo’s dizziness cleared, he soon realised it was a swarm of black arrows that had landed into the creature and impaled it into the surrounding snow. That was enough to bring it down. He could even hear Amaya breathing a sigh of relief. Amaya, of all people, the Archer that seemingly had a death wish. The Nanuqsaurus lay in the snow, one green eye twitching with the last remnants of life.
Blue ghosts emerged from the shadows behind the pine trees in shrouded midnight blue zukins and fukumens. Only their swords and blades shined under the moonlight. As the Night Fangs appeared closer, Hideo felt a mixture of warm relief and disconcertion. How long have they been watching us?
He heard a shriek of pained anguish from behind him and the failed Ninja saw the woman with icicles in her hair weeping over her younger brother. Hideo approached her and placed a half-frozen hand on her shoulder. His fingers felt as stiff as glaciers, but he did not know what else to do or say. Her responses were sobs.
He returned to the other Night Fangs, who were gathered silently around the campfire that miraculously survived the battle. Xerxes was there, in his lion helm, and Amaya was there, on her knees and in shackles between two other fangs that held her down. Hideo could not see Xerxes’ eyes behind the Lion helm. They were shrouded in circular darkness, but he did not need to see them to know they were scornful. “The craven brother and the turncoat,” he said icily. “You both have much to answer for.”