Kuroba Asashin's Arc

Chapter 39 of 44

They rode through the night and reached the fenced complex by mid-morning. Kuroba saw the tower first, then the waterfall spilling down its center face. Terraced fields ringed the base. Lotus pads floated in the pools at the foot of the wall. Guards opened the gate for Kadi without a word. She led him past the terraces and up a ramp cut into stone. A green lizard-dog with a pale mane trotted along the balcony rail as they climbed. It watched Kuroba and did not flinch at the odachi. Kadi touched its head in passing. "My father's," she said. "It knows visitors before the guards do." The king waited in a hall three floors up. He leaned on a cane. A great-spear and a round shield sat on the floor behind him, dragged there and dropped. His dreadlocks had gone grey. His eyes were white. He did not rise. "Kuroba," he said. "Sit. Eat. Then we speak." Servants set bowls of rice, stewed greens, and cut beef from the horned cattle he kept in the low fields. Kadi sat at her father's left. Kuroba pulled his mask below his chin and ate. The king watched him do it and did not comment. "Kazrik will come at the north face," the king said. "It is the widest ground. He will not climb terraces under arrows." "How many gates?" Kuroba asked. "Three. The north is the one that matters." the kind responded calmly. "Your spearmen?" Kuroba asked. The king thought for a moment "Two hundred who can hold a line. Another hundred who will run when the line breaks." He set down his cup. "Do not plan around the hundred." Kuroba nodded. "I take the north gate. Your two hundred hold the flanks. Kadi stays with you. What I can’t see, I will sense. There will be no blindspots." "Kadi stays with me until she doesn't," the king said. "She is eighteen. She will do what she decides to do." Kadi did not answer. She kept eating. The king pushed his bowl aside. "I have fire in these hands. Not what I had at forty. Enough to spend it at the gate when it breaks, not before. Do not wait on me for the small work." "I won't." Kuroba nodded. "Younger men finish easy work and call it done. The hard work I finish myself." He looked at Kuroba's face. "You are not a younger man in the way I mean." "I try not to be.” Kuroba replied with honor. "Good." The kind nodded. "First light," the king said. Kadi walked him to a room on the terrace floor. The waterfall sounded through the wall. Kuroba laid the odachi within reach.