Pieces on a Board
Chapter twelve
Kenji
I smelled my men before I saw them. Gun oil. Fresh sweat. The sharp mineral bite of recently fired casings. Then the forest thinned by degrees—trunks spacing wider, canopy pulling back, moonlight falling through in larger pieces.
Goryū dropped low, folded his wings, and coiled into the dark above a ridge of high brush.
There, I saw silhouettes of many men off in the distance.
I walked on.
The noise of war sounded louder here. The crack and stammer of sustained rifle fire pressed close enough that I felt each shot in my sternum. Men shouted. Metal scraped across metal. A voice screamed a name, and then was cut short.
Then more gunfire, continuous, overlapping, a tearing roar that filled the whole sky and pressed down through the canopy like a second darkness.
The ground shook again.
An explosion came from the south.
Leaves trembled on every branch around me.
I moved through the brush toward the sound and saw dozens of Scales crouched in the undergrowth, pressed against trunks, or prone in the leaf-litter with rifles at their shoulders.
They wore their plain masks—solid red, black, or gray.
In the broken moonlight, they had stopped looking like men and more like demons with horns, hollow eyes, and open mouths.
Row after row. Absolutely still and watching the open ground ahead.
I moved past them toward the tree line, and then the open space beyond the trees stopped me.
A landing zone was up ahead. Exactly as Reo had planned it. The cleared ground ran wide under the moon, and it already held one of Akiro's transport planes at the far edge—ramp down, engines still turning, heat distortion shimmering above.
Men poured from the huge plane, armed and forming up in tight columns that broke apart the moment the first fire found them from the tree line and many of the masked Scales raced out of the forest.
Akiro’s men looked shocked out of their fucking minds. Surely, they thought the Scales were insane.
They were masked and everywhere, screaming out their dismay.
The fight moved in bursts—advance, fire, fall back, fire—and the noise was enormous, a concussive wall that pressed against the chest and made the back of my teeth ache.
Muzzle flash strobed the dark in white and orange. Tracer rounds drew long red lines through the black. Shell casings caught the moonlight as they arced, fell, and disappeared into the grass.
Many of Akiro's men went down.
Many of mine moved forward and then hit their demise.
Our Roar is behind and to the left.
I turned around and found Reo several yards behind the front line, deep enough into the trees that the canopy closed overhead again. Someone had placed a table in the dirt and on its surface was a map of the island.
I hurried to Reo and gazed at the table. From what I could see in the dim lighting, all was painted on there—every road, building, tree line, ridge, landing zone, and even my mansion was rendered in miniature across a flat surface.
And on it, wooden pieces moved in the hands of four men who stood at the edges of the table with phones pressed to their ears. Every few seconds, they listened to whoever was on the phone and then moved the pieces without looking up.
Reo stood behind the table with his arms crossed and his eyes moving along the surface. He heard me before I reached him. "Kenji?"
I got beside him. "What is this?"
"The war." Reo did not look up. "Every piece is a unit. Our men on the ground are calling in position updates. These four relay them to the table.”
“How are we doing?”
“Our guns took out two planes and fed them to the ocean.” His hand moved over the surface without touching it. "But another plane made it to the South landing zone and was greeted by the kill box. Almost all of Akiro’s men have been killed in that area.”
“And the North?”
“We’re at the North landing zone now, but I came up with a new strategy.”
“What new strategy?”
“I figure that if your father and Akiro come to the island, they will need a safe place to land, or they won’t land at all.”
I stared at the map.
“So here in the north, I have fewer of our men than usual going out to fight them. They’re told to retreat like they’re scared and overwhelmed.”
Tension gathered in my shoulder. “Okay.”
“That gives Akiro’s people a false sense of confidence for the North landing zone.”
“Akiro will think that his men are in control of it.”
“Meanwhile, we have hundreds more men hiding within the forest waiting for the main show.”
“Good.”
“The rest of the island is protected. The mansion perimeter. The ridge batteries. The Bamboo Garden." He tapped each cluster of pieces in turn. "I know where everyone is at all times."
“Good. The antiaircraft guns did their job.”
“And now we’re out of them.” Reo let out a long sigh. "I keep seeing the wedding hall in my head."
I swallowed. “I made that deal with the Lion, not you.”
“Still.”
My Roar was efficient and highly intelligent, yet his heart was too big and his soul always yearned for the least casualties possible.
Reo gazed at me. "The Claws will need to be told."
“I am the Dragon. I don’t need to explain every part of this war to them, especially when we have victory in the morning.”
"They watched Tokyo burn. They think Akiro did it." Reo’s hand rested flat on the painted island. "We have to tell them the truth one day because. . .that is why I serve you."
I pursed my lips.
“Because I believe in you and know my loyalty within your hands is safe from corruption, evil, and deceit.” Reo’s mouth tightened.
“Sure. It will be a hard conversation. The Fangs will understand.
The Claws will not. Hiro especially. And every day we let that lie sit in their chests is another day the truth grows bigger than the lie and. . ."
“Again. . .” My hands found the edge of the table and gripped it. "I made the deal and only I will carry it. I will not hand it to the Claws and ask them to carry pieces of it for me. I will not hand it to my brother. That weight is mine."
"That weight will eat you."
"Then it eats me."
"And when Hiro finds out on his own—"
"He won't."
"He will." Reo tilted his head to the side. "Men like your brother always find out."
Tension gathered in my shoulders. “Tonight, we win the war. Tomorrow, we figure that part out.”
Reo nodded.
My stomach twisted. “By the way. . .Akiro and my father are heading here.”
Reo leaned his head to the side. “Is that your guess?”
“No. We did a new ritual and it worked.”
Reo blinked. “A. . .new. . .ritual?”
“Yes. I’ve got control of my dragon-shadow.”
Reo widened his eyes. The best thing about my Roar was that he never questioned any of the mystical sides of my life. He simply addressed it like realistic facts and continued on.
He gestured to my hands. “Is that why you have those black lines on your palms?”
I widened my eyes. “When did you notice them?”
“As soon as you came over.”
And I’d thought his full focus has been on the table.
Reo studied me. “Your dragon-shadow—”
“Goryū.”
“He has a name?”
“He does. That’s what it is.”
“It’s an interesting name.” Reo considered it for a minute. “Goryū. The mountain in the Hida range is called that. Five Dragon Peak. Two thousand eight hundred meters.”
“Why do you know that?”
“It’s one of the hundred famous mountains of Japan."
I looked in Goryū’s direction, and the shadowy beast studied Reo.
My Roar continued, "Goryū also means honored spirit. I think there’s something about a noble of that name who died wrongly and came back as a spirit with enough rage to bring plagues to the world."
“Why do you know that too?”
“I’ve heard the name a lot for some reason. Many times.” Reo rubbed the side of his head again. “And I’ve been a bit obsessed with it through the years.”
I’ve whispered my name in his dreams too.
Don’t whisper in my Roar’s dreams.
Our Roar.
You’re worse than my brother.
Our brother.
Frowning, I leaned over the table. From above, it looked manageable. Pieces on a board, arranged in patterns, moving through a logic that could be read and redirected.
From below, in the dirt, the dark, and the smoke, it was six hundred armed men and fifteen aircraft and the sound of my island tearing itself apart.
“We’re not doing bad at all.” I straightened.
Once, I would have looked at that table and felt something close to worship.
The pieces.
The positions.
The architecture of power rendered small enough to hold in both hands.
There was a time when this—all of this—was the only thing I understood as a life worth living.
The empire.
The name.
The throne that cost more to keep than I could calculate in a single accounting.
I had been given the throne out of tragedy and.
. .I had learned to want it. Completely.
With the kind of wanting that didn't leave room for anything else—not rest, not softness, not the warmth of a woman who looked at me not as the Dragon but as the man standing just behind the beast, ordinary, exhausted, and still trying.
But something had shifted in me on that forest floor, and it had not been gradual the way they said change was supposed to be.
It had been a single point of rupture.
Her blood in a bowl.
Her mouth on my palm.
Her body in my arms after.
Her soul now. . .inside of me.
I had felt her rage burning through my chest all the way to this table, and what I felt alongside it—beneath the pride, beneath the war-hunger—was a grief so quiet it had no language yet. Only the shape of it. The outline of something I had already lost and not yet been permitted to mourn.
I thought about children I had not yet held.
I thought about mornings that had no war in them.
I thought about Nyomi's laugh—the one that arrived when she was not performing anything for anyone, when she forgot I was watching—and I thought that I would give all of this away just to spend the rest of my days with her in my arms.
I’d give my entire empire away.
The pieces on the board.
The throne.
Somewhere far below what I was willing to say aloud, a decision was being made in my soul.
After this war, things will change. . .
I looked out through the trees toward the fight.
Finally, I caught the Claws and Fangs in their detailed masks, holding positions at the edge of the tree line with their bodies low. They were demonic creatures crouching in the dark.
I looked for Hiro among them and couldn’t find him.
Reo grabbed my attention. “How is Nyomi?"
“She is safe.”
“Off the island?”
“In the Bamboo Garden.”
Reo frowned for the first time. “What?”
“Akiro’s men came before she could leave.”
“The Claws will not like this.”
“I don’t even like it. Which means we need to end this war fast.”
Reo checked behind me. “And Hiro? Did you decide to have him stay with her?”
“No.” I blinked. “He’s supposed to be with you.”
Reo shook his head. “We haven’t seen Hiro since you two left us.”
Goryū’s voice entered my head. He’s here. Sleeping behind this tree.
What the fuck?
I headed off.
Reo followed. “Where are you going?”
“To Hiro. My dragon-shadow is with him.”