Kuroba Asashin's Arc

Chapter 45 of 51

The odachi rose and fell along the ruined gate. Brutes climbed the pile of their dead and Kuroba cut them down as they came. The king held his ground beside him, spear-point wet, shield smoking. The line held. Kuroba pushed forward one step, then another, opening a lane into the second wave. He needed to reach Kazrik before the count turned again. He felt it before he saw it. A cold seam in the crowd. Something small moving with the current instead of against it. He turned his head. Between two brutes he caught a glimpse of a hooded shape, low, sliding sideways at hip height. He knew the walk. The serpent monk who had once put him on his back in the black stone palace. Kuroba tried to pivot. A brute swung an axe at his shoulder and he had to answer it. The odachi met the haft and split it. In the half breath that cost him, the hooded shape closed the last of the ground. Two fingers pressed the side of his neck. He felt the current in his body stop. Not pain. Absence. The heat that ran through his arms, the pulse that carried the blade, all of it drained out of him like water from a cracked jar. "The river runs where the stone allows," the serpent monk said at his ear. "Tonight the stone closes." Kuroba drove an elbow back. It landed. The hooded shape folded around it and slid away between two brutes, gone before the king could turn. Kuroba stayed on his feet. The odachi felt heavy for the first time in years. He cut down the next brute on strength alone and felt his knee give a finger's width. The one after him he took slower. His chi did not answer when he reached for it. The lock was clean. "Kuroba." The king had seen his face. "What." Rin was in the crowd. He hit a point. The king did not waste words. He stepped in front of Kuroba and set his shield across the gap. Fire ran down the great-spear and jumped to the pile of dead. The brutes at the front recoiled from the heat. "Hold the gate," the king said. "Do not fall here. My daughter still needs you." Kuroba braced the odachi point-down and used it to stand. Across the field, Kazrik saw him lean on the blade and understood. He raised a hand. The second wave surged. Kuroba drew one breath he could not feel and set his stance the way the old man on the porch had taught him. Feet first. Ground first. He would fight without the river tonight. He had promised Kadi a life. He meant to keep the promise on legs alone.