On Thin Ice (Prequel to Guild)

Chapter Thirty-Four: Honey Trap

                     Terracotta figurines lined the battlefield. Cattle and farmers, kings and emperors and gods faced off against one another from one of two sides. Outskirts. Empire. The latter stacked and the former sparse but growing in both size and power. Why? That was the riddle that summoned the Imperial Circle today. It furrowed Dai's brow and made the weakest of his cadre yawn, drum fingers on the war table or stomp their boots against the ground.

It looked like a game: one of strategy, skill, concentration. Like Senso, but slightly improved because Jia was not his opponent. She didn't stand at the elbow of their father, sneering at him as his gods defected and his emperor's head rolled to bump against a burning palace stoop.

This time, Daiki Kimsura didn't know his enemy. Just the banner they flew, the bloodthirsty savages they led.

"They're gaining confidence. Something- someone has given them hope."

Tension bound the room and knotted two Serpentine courts together. United them with a common hope, a common fear. Dai scanned the council and read the same two words in eyes black and grey. But not in blue.

Osamu Hikawa's lips tightened when General Kano took command of the room from Gōruden. "Their Chosen One," Kano suggested, but Dai's Second shook his head and let his pointer-sword fall back with his arm. No. He looked instead to Inoue, who met his shogun's stare as he emerged from his slouch.

"There have been whispers," Inoue divulged, "in Isutobei. Rumours."

"Rumours," prompted Osamu. "Of what nature?"

Inoue's gaze skipped from the emperor to General Vasu, to Akiyama, to Hao. Easterners. Easterners who had seen their forts and castles pillaged in the last year.

"General?"

Inoue sat back in his seat, sighing. "Rumours that Kogo Takusan survived. That she's raising an army and intends to bring it here to avenge her parents and grandfather on His Excellency and Emperor Osamu."

A beat of quiet- then half-amused snorts and shaking heads.

"She can't have survived," said Matsumoto, "no one survives Ushinawareta Otome Forest, much less little girls."

"This one did." Osamu didn't look away from Dai when he spoke. Nor did he soften his tone. "With help, no doubt, but I guarantee she's still out there, plotting revenge. And she's a child no longer."

"Sixteen," inserted Tsuyoi Yu, whose father he'd unfortunately hounded out of his position.

"You forget, General, that many of us had killed by sixteen. But you were still squeamish at eighteen, weren't you? Threw up on the dirty swamper's corpse?"

"Shut up, Matsumoto-"

"I seem to remember you nearly pissing yourself when Kimsura invited you into the April Trial."

"Shut-"

"Enough!" Emperor Osamu joined Gōruden on his feet, punctuating his sentence by slamming his fist on the table. "Are you Circle Generals or are you children? You have work to do."

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Gōruden returned the tip of his sword to the table, the map and battle spread across it. "Returning to my earlier point," he said, but his colleague dropped it.

Literally.

Brown dust scattered across the artificial grass- dirt from an explosion the empire had not yet engineered.

Dai glared at Matsumoto as the headless bull fell into a small Isuto lake.

The general put up his hands. "My sincerest apologies, Your Most Impressive Gloominess. I was only trying to see if the statue had a signature, so I could learn where I could find and commission the artisan."