Unlike Hakkaim village, the new one I approached had their gates opened and a quartet of armed guards standing to the side of the entrance. All four of the guards were men bedecked in laminated armor trimmed with steel on the head guard and along the edges of their plates. For the region, this armor was almost too good. It made me cautious as I approached and I tightened my grip on the Mountain Cutter as I came into sight of the guards.

  All four of them twitched at the sight of me in my jade green armor. I held myself as still as a post while they gathered their wits. If I hadn’t given away Odgen’s robes, I could have passed into the city without so much as a second glance, assuming these guards were not well versed in the usual vestments of Odgen’s monkish order.

  I bowed to them once the men had recovered from their shock. One of them, who’s shoulders bore two fine crimson loops I took as a designation of rank stepped toward me. Unlike the bandit I’d killed, this man held his long-bladed spear in a loose two-handed grip. The way he kept his feet away from the butt of his spear while holding the weapon at the ready told me he had real battle experience. Few of the local spear schools taught practical skills like how to run or jog with the weapon ready.

  The others behind the guard displayed their lack of skill by standing with the butts of their spears on the ground and in one case behind a leg. That man would be the least experienced of the bunch and the most likely to trip over his spear if the time came to use it.

  “What business do you have in Tamanoe village, warrior…. Warrioress?” He peered at me and amended his challenge when he made out my features. Usually the way my armor covered up my hair kept people from identifying me as a woman at a glance.

  “I just want a place to buy some new clothes, some food, and maybe a bath.” I leaned against my sword, covered as it was in its canvas and did my best to look non-threatening. Or as non-threatening as an almost six-foot woman wearing pale green plate mail and carrying a “staff” almost as tall as her could.

  Tendons on the lead warrior’s neck stood out between the gaps in armor, straining as if to keep his head facing me and not back where he could look at his men to make sure they’d back him up. I sighed and prepared to walk away from the man when a shout from down the road brought us both spinning to face the newcomer.

  “Niece! Niece!” An old woman wearing familiar ochre robes came running up, hobbling and bent over as if she bore the weight of years on her back. Hanari’s disguise was good enough to fool me for a second, and I’d given her those robes. But the scent of bean curd preceded her and made clear her identity as surely as a seal from a public official. Hanari panted as if the run had been exhausting, though I could tell up close she feigned that as well as her age. “I decided I just wasn’t going to let you come in here on you own and then come back to get me when you thought it was safe, it just didn’t feel right!” She even managed to affect a rural farmer’s accent as she jabbered on.

  One eye on the lead guard revealed he had turned back to his fellows and the group of them shared a chuckle at Hanari and my expense. Hanari stared up at me as if waiting for me to acknowledge her words. “I uh…” Damnit, this kind of deception was not my forte. “I’m glad you arrived when you did, auntie.”

  Hanari nodded at me as if I’d said the right thing and she sauntered up to the guards. “Now you boys gonna let an old monk lady and her sworn protector in, or is Inari and her brood gonna curse you and your children’s toes?”

  The smiles faded from the men’s faces slowly and the guard at the fore rubbed the back of his neck. “The two of you are going to stay here overnight?”

  Hanari made a dramatic presentation of rolling her eyes and scratching her backside. “‘Course we are. Why’d you ask, sonny?”

  I thought she laid it on a bit thick, but at the same time, I wouldn’t know acting from playing cards. And based on the legends, this kind of deception was exactly what the Kitsune were most famous for.

  “I, er that is…” One of the junior guards, the guy who’d left himself open to trip on his spear, managed to step over it and trudge over to the leader. They shared a quiet exchange, which I could hear as if they’d shouted their words to the heavens.

  “Qui, just let them in.” The younger man eyed the old woman. “We can’t risk angering the gods.”

  “And if they’re thieves or liars?”

  “Then the gods will punish them for us and they won’t be our problems.”

  I was no longer a thief, but we were definitely liars. Or at least Hanari was. I’d only gone along with her ruse because to do otherwise was to incur the guards’ anger and guarantee they wouldn’t let me into their walls.

  Qui considered his options briefly and then nodded. “You can both enter. The Sparrow’s Nest has rooms for women as well as meals.” The name made it sound like an inn specifically for women, which raised this particular village one full rank in my mind. Most small, minor villages had only a single “inn,” a generous word for the headman’s home where travelers could stay for steep prices. The way Qui spoke, Tamanoe had more than one inn within its walls. That fact combined with the state of their roads suggested this was a prosperous, important little town.

  The four guards stood to the side and let Hanari and I pass through. I turned back toward the gate and found the most junior of the guards missing from his post. Shrugging my shoulders, I turned back the town and marveled at the fine buildings situated near the front entrance.

  Two and three story buildings sat on either side of the street, which had received the same degree of care as the roads outside, only the streets saw even more traffic than the roads. People wore finer robes, with more vibrant colors, than those of Hakkaim and I wondered at the village’s obvious prosperity. For this many people to share in the wealth, this village must have traded in a lucrative good.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Only two blocks in and I identified the twofold source of Tamanoe’s wealth. The second block contained a meadery as well as a massive school of martial arts. A bee who’s stinger spilled a drop into a barrel announced the first building’s role while a pair of men carrying long spears announced the second building’s purpose. As with the guards at the gate, the spears on the sign bore long blades at the end reminiscent of old style naginatas. Odgen had taught me basic weapon katas other than the heavy daikatana, but I was anything but a master of those forms. And I had not spent much time studying the styles of the people sent to kill me. Few of them had been spear wielders.

  Throughout our journey toward the center of the town, Hanari stuck close to me. She occasionally raised her withered old face and cracked a wide smile at me. I shook my head in response. I could have been angry with her. But from the way Qui responded to my presence, he’d intended to refuse me admission to Tamanoe. Hanari had been essential in getting me into the walls. Besides, I couldn’t exactly reprimand her in the middle of the street.

  We crossed before the spear school and a trio of men emerged. All three of them carried the signature long spears over their shoulders. Those shoulders were broad and the arms attached to them well muscled. Even the men’s legs showed signs of having been developed, a fact for which I mentally gave the school credit. Too few martial styles ignored the importance of the base when building a proper warrior.

  I sized up the men and stole my eyes away too slowly. One of them caught me staring at them and slapped his fellows with his free hand. Without my robes to hide my form, I glittered like wet honeydew melon in the sun. And I attracted too much attention.

  “Hey you!”

  “Spit and blood.” My curse brought a shake of her shoulders to Hanari, who kept her head carefully turned away from me. I ignored the young man calling after me and continued toward the squat building in the distance with a sparrow drawn over the lintel.

  “I said Hey! Stop for a second you!” The young man caught up with me and jogged ahead of Hanari and me. “What’s that you’re carrying in the canvas?”

  He pointed at the Mountain Cutter in my hand with the butt of his spear. If not for the fact it was hidden I would have been offended at the man’s rude gesture and question. I tried to step around him while keeping my eyes focused through him on the sparrow mark in the distance. To her credit, Hanari followed my lead.

  But then the young man’s other two companions raced up and stuck themselves in my path. The first young man had a scar on his left cheek which trailed down over his jaw. The second of the trio, the one who’d stood directly in my path as I tried to walk around the first had shaggy brown hair which hung just over his eyes. I would have been annoyed at such a style, as it would have been too short to pull it up and out of my vision. And the third tough was shorter than his companions and suffered from acne across his face which made him look like a smallpox victim.

  Shaggy-hair leaned toward me and said, “Hua asked you a question, guy.” He reached out to put a hand on me, as if he would push me back with his palm. I had a split second to decide what I wanted to do about these three. From the sheen of sweat covering them and the way they bared their chests, they’d come from training. I did not wish to provoke a fight in the middle of the street.

  Rather than grab the man’s wrist and break it, I planted my weight on my back foot and let him try to shove me. Rocks crunched under my heels as the man strained to move me so much as a fraction of an inch. My eyes flicked down to his hand and I smirked at him.

  It wasn’t the best choice in hindsight. But I’d let him try and fail to shove me without injuring him, I was owed some snark.

  I’d hoped their master had worked the aggression out of the three young men, but had also underestimated the well of stupidity and violence which could be plumbed in such a trio. When his attempts to move me failed, Shaggy-hair stepped back and swung his spear down parallel to the ground. The sharp end of the spear was closer to me than to Hanari; a choice which saved the young man considerable pain.

  I grabbed Hanari’s shoulder and pushed her behind me as the other two young men readied their weapons. From a few short moves, I’d noticed the similarity between Qui’s stance and these three. They had the same master and I suspected he was skilled, despite the hotheadedness of his students.

  “I do not wish to fight any of you…”

  Shaggy-hair cut me off and struck at me with the haft of his spear. I caught the wooden handle with one hand and held firm against the young man’s strength. His eyes widened and he glanced between my hand and my eyes as I favored him with a flat glare. I let the killing force of my will escape through my pupils and felt the young man’s hands shake. As a testament to his master and his training, he didn’t drop the spear and run. From the way his legs shifted and his shoulders jerked, I could sense the primal fear ignite in the back of his brain. But he fought it and I was ever so slightly impressed.

  “What’s going on here!?” A soft voice called out from the door of the spear-training hall and I relaxed a fraction. The speaker had a husky cast to their voice and for a second I was shocked to hear a woman shout at these men with such authority. “Hua, Vinju, and Tien, are you starting a fight with a stranger in front of my home and your dojo?”

  She used the old word for the training hall and my respect for the woman reached up to match the moon. I still didn’t turn to look at her as I held Shaggy-hair’s spear haft in my hand and I could smell fear leaking from his pores as he shook. Scared people did stupid things, my whole life testified to this fact.

  The woman jogged forward wearing a traditional training gi, another artifact from a different time. It had a white top and black hakima pants. She’d tied the sleeves of her coat up and into her shoulders to keep them out of the way over the course of training. Brilliant red hair shone in the light and drew my attention to it. Hues as vibrant as this were rarer than kind spirits and suggested the woman possessed otherworld blood.

  When she reached the nearest of her pupils, Acne-face, she kicked him in the rear and body checked him with a near-perfect Bear Shoulder. She grabbed the end of Shaggy-hair’s spear, stepped between me and the haft and twisted. Her move brought the blade toward Hua, who had to bring his own spear up in an angle to keep from being stabbed. With one move, she brought both of her remaining students off their feet and onto the rocky ground. Odgen would have applauded her grace.

  All three of them cowered from her as she turned to face me. “It grieves me to find my students behaving so disgracefully.” She bowed to Hanari from the hip, almost at a ninety-degree angle and favored me with a similar, though ever so slightly shallower bow. As if she’d taken Hanari as the elder between the two of us. “My name is Wei Yun, and I am responsible for the three idiots behind me on the ground. I am very sorry for their behavior. It is… inexcusable.” Shivers roiled over all three of the young men on the ground at the slow way Wei Yun drew out her last word.

  “I am deeply sorry master!” Hua and the other two kowtowed to me and Hanari. Their groveling split between us and Wei. “Our actions are unforgivable!”

  Wei nodded once at them and looked back at me. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth, but Hanari cut me off with her faux old woman’s voice. “Forgiveness comes far easier on full bellies and in private, does it not?” Hanari lurched forward, as taken with a sudden palsy and I caught her. She coughed on my arm and said, “do you think we could rest a spot in the shade of your dojo?”