Kuroba Asashin's Arc

Chapter 29 of 44

Kuroba looked at the dead men in the yard and then at Tish and Ona. He told them to leave the bodies for later. They were going back to the palace. Tish set her knife on the porch rail and slid her feet into the heels she had kicked off. Ona pulled two arrows from a corpse and dropped them in her quiver. Bobby helped Jackie down from the saddle and stayed with him at the dojo. Kuroba took the wagon horses himself. They rode east through the pass and reached the black stone palace by late morning. Word had already moved ahead of them. A crowd stood at the palace steps. Farmers with hoes. A blacksmith with soot on his arms. Women with children on their hips. Old men who had walked half the night. They had heard Rin was gone. They had heard a man in a black mask had thrown him out. They wanted to see the door for themselves. When Kuroba rode up they went quiet. He dismounted and helped Tish down. Ona swung off her own horse and set her hand near her hip. Kuroba walked up the steps and turned to face them. He pulled his mask down to his throat so they could hear him. "This palace does not belong to Rin," he said. "It does not belong to me. It belongs to you." He put his hand on Tish's shoulder. "Tish Amorait speaks for this house now. She runs the halls. She runs the stores. What she says here is law." A murmur ran through the crowd. A man near the front asked who would keep the walls when the next Kazrik came. Kuroba let the question sit. Then he said, "My dojo. Any hand raised against this place answers to my dojo. That is the price of the gate staying open." Ona climbed the step below him and set her back to his. She did not speak. She did not need to. Tish looked out at the crowd. She did not smile. "The kitchens open at dusk," she said. "Bring a bowl. Bring a child if you have one. Anyone sleeping rough tonight sleeps inside." She turned to Kuroba and lowered her voice. "I will need people I can trust by morning." Kuroba nodded. He pulled his mask back up. The crowd began to move up the steps in a slow line, and Tish went in through the great door ahead of them. Ona stayed on the step beside Kuroba and watched every face that passed. The palace was hers to hold now, and the dojo had a second wall to defend.