P.L. Nunn's Blog

Chapter 6 of Killing Edge

After getting inspired to start work on this again by the last two live action Kenshin movies, I've got new chapters of 'The killing edge."

You can find chapter 6 at the fiction page at plnunn.com.

New fictions

Sorry, I forgot all about updating this, and its been finished for a while.

So here it is all in one lump sum.

I've got the last three chapters of my Teen Wolf fiction, 'Vendetta'

Also the 1st chapter of the third and final story in the series, 'Vanago'.

Check them out at the fiction page.

http://plnunn.com/fiction_new/main/index.php

Three new chapters of 'Vendetta'

Happy new years, everyone.

Hope all of you had a safe foray into 2014.

I've got three new chapters of Vendetta, (my Teen Wolf fanficiton) up at Bishonenworks.

Check them out if you'd like.

http://plnunn.com/fiction_new/main/index.php

New fan fiction

Happy holidays everyone.

I've got the first three chapters of Vendetta, which is the sequel to my Teen Wolf fiction, Road Trip, up at Bishonenworks.

Check it out.

http://plnunn.com/fiction_new/story_chapters/vendetta1.php

New Fiction

I decided to wait until I'd actually finished a fiction before torturing people with unfinished stuff.

My muses get so damned eclectic that I never know what's going to strike my fancy and draw me off in new directions. I'm very much enamored of Teen Wolf though, so the writing was fast and intense. I got a lot done in a short period of time and actually finished the story. The whole 48,000 word fiction is up at my website.

There's no slash. Just bromance and adventure and my usual character abuse.

Check it out.

http://plnunn.com/fiction_new/story_chapters/roadtrip1.php

Todd and the book of pure Evil

My new favorite guilty pleasure/obsession. And as with all my obsessions, I have the need to create artwork.

If you've never seen this show - - its a Canadian Comedy/horror - - check it out. Its on Netflix and I think the fear network. Only two seasons made before they cancelled it (bastards) but they're making an animated movie to wrap it up that'll be out next year.

Check out the artworkhere.

Killing edge parts 4 and 5

Boy, its been a while since I posted, huh? Been busy with all manner of projects.

I've had these for a while, but only just got around to posting. Not a lot of interest it seems, from the lack of enthusiasm or comments on the story, so it got shifted to the back burner in favor of other things.

you can check out chapters 4 and 5 at plnunn.com (Bishonenworks)

Killing edge chapter 4 here.

Killing edge part 3

Here's chapter 3 of Killing edge.

Its also posted at Bishonenworks.


Chapter three

The notion being the use of a pile of old manacles and chains that the smith produced from a box of scrap metal in the back of his wagon. Sano and Kenshin went about snapping rusty manacles around the ankles of the incapacitated bandits and fastening the chains around the thick bole of a tree at the edge of the clearing. The conscious bandits complained vigorously, threatening and begging successively at being abandoned at forest's edge. Even if their fellows returned they'd have no easy time freeing their comrades from their bonds. And if they didn't then two or three days chained to a tree was little enough hardship for what they'd been about, until authorities from Dhannagiri might return to deal with them. At the very least it would keep them off their trail.

They helped the old man hitch the team of mules, who were in no wise happy at being roused and put to work before the break of dawn, and left the group of complaining bandits in their wake. For the first few miles, Sano and Kenshin walked the forest side of the trail, wary for attack from the shelter of trees. But none came, and eventually the old man slowed the wagon and snapped for them to take the perch on the back.

"Might as well ride," he said, grudgingly. "And there's a berth in the back, if one of you wants to take an hour or two's sleep before day breaks."

It was likely as much thanks as they were going to get from the sullen old smith, and Sano shrugged and hopped onto the back ledge of the van, opening the top half of the door and peering in.

"You might as well take him up on it," Sano said. "I've had my few hours sleep. Damned if I could sleep with all that iron jangling above my head anyway."

And there was a suspicious array of metal hanging from hooks in the ceiling of the van. Everything from scythe blades and shovelheads, to wheel hubs and cast iron pans, gears and harness bits, all of it swaying precariously with the motion of the wagon.

There was an unrolled futon in the narrow space between trunks and boxes secured to the sidewalls, with blankets still rumpled from the old man's interrupted sleep. It was as attractive a bed as any he'd slept in recently, despite the dangling bits and pieces of iron, and he'd been awake long enough that his body felt the need for a bit of honest slumber. He shrugged and accepted the offer. Sano fastened the both portions of the back door open against the back of the wagon and sat in the doorway, one foot dangling, the other propped on the hitch that connected wagon to forge.

A good vantage to observe the road behind them, and Kenshin felt secure enough with Sano on watch to fall into the old man's bed and let sleep take him.



It was early morning when they stopped, and Kenshin figured he'd gotten perhaps three hours sleep. Rocking wagon and swaying odd bits of iron above his head or no, he was good at taking rest when time and circumstance allowed.

The old man, Ayog was his name, had a care for his mules, ancient themselves. So they stopped at the edge of a field of sugar cane not much taller than a man's hip to feed and water the animals. It was doubtful that the particular bandits that plagued this road would try them again, especially with half their numbers chained to a tree. And with the fields on one side and the canal on the other, there was little vantage for ambush regardless.

The old man had offered generously to share breakfast with them, his mood greatly improved having survived last night thanks to them. It was dried fish and rice spiced with curry and flakes of dried vegetables and flat bread cooked over a small fire set up on the canal side of the road, away from the grasses bordering the fields. A grand affair, for road fare, but Kenshin supposed the old man was feeling the need to show gratitude that did not extend to actually speaking the words.

A year and a half in India and Kenshin had become used to food spicier than he would have preferred, but the old smith had a taste for fire in his cooking and every bite of rice needed a chaser of tea and plain bread to dull the heat. Sano loved it, but then Sano had eaten things in the course of their travel that Kenshin's stomach turned a little thinking about.

"So, your names don't sound Chinese," the old man commented when they'd finished up the meal to the last grain of rice, the three of them sitting at the edge of the canal, watching minnows dart in and out of the reeds. "Where are you from?"

"Japan," Sano offered.

"You're a long way from home, then."

"Yes," Kenshin agreed.

"Been as far as Peking myself, but never to Japan. Don't much care for ships."

"No," Kenshin agreed.

"I've been to Peking," Sano said. "I liked Shanghai better. Not nearly as stuffy. Nicer women."

Ayog cackled. "Knew a woman in Shanghai myself in my youth."

Sano's interest perked and he and the old man went on a bit, reminiscing about whores encountered during their various travels. Kenshin sat and listened, half an ear to their boasts, half an ear to the sounds of the crickets and the frogs and the distant chatter of birds. A casual morning of feeding and mating and squabbling with nothing human stalking the shadows to interrupt the litany.

Sano's stories changed with his audience, cruder or tamer depending on who listened to his boasts. The old smith had a taste for the vulgar and Sano's descriptive details reflected just that and the two of them amused themselves greatly trading tales.

Kenshin might have blushed, if he hadn't heard it all before. He got the feeling half Sano's bragging was just that anyway, designed to provoke; Sano glancing at him now and then, with that sly smile on his face only reinforcing the suspicion. Besides, believing most of Sano's fables were just that, stories made up to impress the impressionable, was a more comfortable thing to accept. He might be just a little annoyed, otherwise at Sano's promiscuity.

Certainly Sano had held no great talent wooing women during their years of friendship in Japan. Rather he'd been good at irritating and annoying them. At least the honest, respectable ones. Perhaps that's why all his stories centered around women of ill repute.

There had been a particular geisha in Tokyo, though, that Sano had claimed association with - - Kenshin frowned, tossing a rock into the canal in a sudden spurt of irritation. It hit with a splash that caused Sano and the old man pause. Kenshin smiled the smile he usually used when he needed a façade to cover less pleasant emotions and claimed he'd seen a water snake.

Sano and Ayog peered into the brown water warily and decided thereafter to smother the little fire and return the cookware to the back of the wagon.

He had no notion why the idea of Sano and Sano's visitation of whores rubbed him so raw of a sudden. It was no breaking news, and yet - - ten years he'd wondered Japan, from one end to the other and back again and not once had he felt the need to buy the services of a woman. He had practically lived the life of a monk, his interest in sex confined for the most part to the morning requirements of any healthy young male. Sano had traveled China for a handful of years and he claimed to have visited half the whorehouses from Peking to Shanghai.

"What?" Sano asked in an undertone, while the old man rustled in the back of his wagon, storing his cooking supplies.

Kenshin gave him an oblivious look, pretending at no thoughts deeper than the state of the morning sky. Sano lifted a brow, not believing it. But the old smith had reappeared at the back door of the van and Kenshin was saved from avoiding the explanation of something he had no understanding of anyway.

"With thieves roaming the countryside, a man might feel safer armed," Ayog said, patting the big knife at his belt. "I've a few old blades, if either of you want."

"No," Kenshin said having no desire to have more than the small knife Pakshi had given him, even as Sano leaned forward and asked. "What've you got?"

The old man grinned. "Not offering anything that'll get you in trouble with the British - - grab hold of this chest, boy - -"

Sano wrestled a trunk big enough to fit a body in from the back of the wagon out to the ground. It had an archaic lock, which the old man opened with a key he kept in a jar. Inside was a considerable collection of arms. If it was made of metal and designed to kill or maim a man, Ayog had it in the chest. Blades of all sorts, curved scimitars, heavy, a wide bladed broad sword, ornate garish foils. No few daggers and knives, curved and wicked, thin and devious, one that could only have been used for ornamentation it was so covered in fine etching and metal scrollwork of gold and silver.

"It's a hobby of mine," Ayog said, picking through the assorted jumble of blades and choosing a serviceable dagger to hold out to Sano. "The collection of fine metal work. My grandfather was a weapon's smith, but the British frown on the making of weapons that might be used against them, so my father never practiced the art. Nor taught it to me. I can appreciate the workmanship of others though.

He lifted a big, entirely clumsy seeming broad sword and pulled out a more graceful blade in a weathered, brown sheath. "This one's from your homeland. Older than me, if I'm any judge."

He offered it and Kenshin couldn't stop himself from taking it. From closing his hand around a sheath that was cracked from age, the leather strapping of the hilt close to dry rotted and rough under his palm. But when he unsheathed it, three foot of blade sliding like butter from the aged sheath, the metal gleamed as if it had been newly forged. The most balanced sword he'd ever held, rotting hilt or no. It felt like an extension of his own flesh and bone and he'd forgotten almost what it felt like to hold steel so balanced and so perfectly forged that it felt alive. That it felt like it had been made to fit his hand.

He let out a breath, hardly aware that he'd been holding it, and shivered with a sudden, overwhelming want of this blade. The overwhelming need to have that familiar, comfortable weight in his belt again. A dangerous need, because this was no reverse blade, but a sword with a killing edge. A sword that would draw blood when wielded and he'd already broken the vow he'd made so long ago. Already killed again. And it hadn't plagued him, the taking of Winter's life. The man had been remorseless. A killer, who manipulated and inflicted pain for his own gain and his own twisted pleasures and Kenshin had given him the justice he deserved. And the sakabatou, even with its killing edge on the wrong side, had slid into his flesh as easily as any normal blade. And if Kenshin had felt anything - -it hadn't been remorse.

He shut his eyes and slid it back into its sheath blind.

Another breath and he presented it back to the smith, his hands shaking ever so slightly.

"A very fine blade. An old one."

The smith took it back, eyeing Kenshin speculatively. "I won it from a trader - - oh, thirty years ago - - and he likely stole it himself. Claimed it was the blade of some shogun, but he was a liar and a cheat, so his word meant nothing."

"Thirty years ago there were a lot of shogun," Sano remarked.

Kenshin said nothing, flexing his hand.

"You're a swordsman."

It wasn't a question. Kenshin inclined his head slightly. "I was."

The old man stared at him a moment longer, then nodded and laid the katana atop the rest in the trunk.




Sano kept the knife. It wasn't like he needed it for any advantage in a fight, his hands being all the weapon he needed, but a knife had other uses. And it was a decent knife that might in a pinch bring a few coins if he needed it badly enough, and Sano was never one to turn down offers of free things. Unlike Kenshin, who was going out of his way not to look back into that trunk full of sharp pointy things at the old katana. The look on his face when he'd held that naked blade had been as akin to arousal as Sano had seen in - - well, in a damned long time. But then swordsmen were a funny lot when it came to their blades, and Kenshin had been no exception, back when he'd been carrying the sakabatou regularly, treating the thing like it was a revered member of his family.

When the old man closed the chest and relocked it, Kenshin sighed softly, as if in some relief and walked to stare at the canal as Sano wrestled the thing back into the wagon. It was back on the road after that, them taking turns riding up front with the old man while the other walked the road, wary of human predators stalking the way.

By nightfall the shoulder the old man had thrown out in the attack had gone stiff and sore, and he cursed with fluent creativeness the bastard boy who'd thrown him to the ground and done it. Sano and Kenshin unhitched the mules when they stopped for the night. Dhannagiri was only a few more hours down the road, Ayog claimed, but the beasts had had a long haul, with their rest the night before interrupted, and he was loath to risk them by pushing on needlessly.

The road had meandered away from the canal, and they used water from jugs hanging off the side of the wagon for supper. Plain fare again, of rice and fried bread left over from earlier, but it was better than roots and the old man seemed happy to share considering their help.

Afterwards, they sat around the crackling fire. Sano and Ayog carried the conversation, while Kenshin quietly listened, oft times staring past them into the fire or the darkness of the woods, thinking gods knew what, but not Sano thought, paying great heed to what they said.

Sano spoke of his training with the little Chinese on the mainland, the months of building up stamina he hadn't realized he'd been lacking, longer than he'd ever spent learning the basics of a skill before mastering it. Ayog laughed, claiming that no skill learned in a few months was a skill worthy of having. He himself had apprenticed four years to his father, before he'd ever been allowed to strike a hammer to metal. And then he'd apprenticed another five before he'd been allowed to mold anything more complex than a horseshoe. It had taken that long to gain the strength needed to work the forge.

"You look to have a strength about you boy," the old man scoffed. "But it takes years to build the strength it takes to work hammer and forge day in and day out."

"How much strength does it take to beat a piece of iron?" Sano scoffed right back, holding up a fist criss crossed with pale white scars. "And its not just strength, it's channeling of power, focusing everything into a blow that can shatter rock if I want."

Ayog held up his good hand, clenching a big fist with its own faded scarring. "You think you can take me in a match of strength, boy?"

Sano laughed. "Old man, I'd wipe the floor with you."

Kenshin did glance at him then, with what Sano suspected was a roll of his eyes under the shadow of his hair, but Sano ignored him.

"I wouldn't feel right, pushing an injured old man beyond his limits," Sano said magnanimously.

"If it were my injured arm that I was pushing, I'd have a worry. Fetch a crate from the wagon, boy, instead of wagging your tongue."

Sano laughed, and hauled a crate from the back of the wagon, placing it between them in the little camp. Ayog flexed his good right arm, which was, Sano had to admit, a good deal thicker than his. But big didn't necessarily guarantee superior strength. He'd taken down men twice his size before. He planted his elbow on the crate top and presented his hand. The old smith grinned and did the same.

An easy match, he wasn't anticipating, but he hadn’t expected not to make a dent against the old man's strength at the get go. The old man's arm was solid as rock, and his strength just as imperturbable. Sano bared his teeth in a grin and leaned forward just a little to readjust leverage. The old man tested him and he held firm, their fists firmly at center crate.

"Sixty years working the forge," Ayog grunted. "Builds strength that no green behind the ears braggart who's spent a few years breaking boards can match."

"Ha!" Sano ground his teeth and managed to move the old man's hand a fraction of an inch. "Add ten years to that and it makes you an old geezer way past his prime. Maybe thirty years ago you could have taken me."

Ayog narrowed his eyes, veins cording in his neck. Sano sincerely hoped the old man didn't have a heart attack.

A drop of rain hit their joined fists. Then another, as the dark sky leisurely began to weep.

"Ready to give?" Ayog grunted. "Before your hair gets wet?"

"No. You? Wouldn't want you to catch a chill, old man."

He was half aware, past his focus on keeping the old man from pinning his hand, of Kenshin making a disgusted sound and rising, softly saying that he was going to sit in the back of the wagon out of the rain. Sano was almost certain he heard him add a very soft 'fools', as he was retreating and he cast half an indignant glare at his back.

The old man almost took him with the distraction, gaining back that inch and gaining one himself. The rain made for slick skin and treacherous grips. Even if it was in good humor, with no lives on the line, it was a contest and Sano took his contests seriously. If he lost to a seventy year old man, even one with arms like tree boles, his conscience would never let him forget it.

He'd been taught by a disgraced monk the art of channeling all the strength of his body, all the focus of his power into the single point of a blow. Come to find out, powerful as the art was, it was still a pretty unrefined one. He'd learned better things since, that didn't put all his eggs in the basket of one powerful punch that was as likely to cripple him, as it was to shatter whatever it was he was trying to take out.

Still, the technique of gathering that strength, of focusing it, of building up to one powerful lunge - - not to shatter, but simply to overcome - - seemed apropos.

He drew in a breath, let it out in a long whistle, channeled his focus and with a powerful jerk, slammed the old man's wrist to the crate. Ayog cursed, shaking out his hand, even as Sano did, his arm feeling trembling and weak now that the stress was gone.

"Son of a bitch," he flexed his hand, rubbing his shoulder with the other one. "You're one tough old bastard."

The old man gave him a narrow, rain drenched look, before his mouth split in a crooked grin. "You're the first man to beat me since I was nineteen and too full of myself to know a loosing proposition when it sat down in front of me."

Contest over, the rain demanded they take notice. Kenshin moved back from the open back door of the wagon van, making room for Sano and the old man to settle under the shelter of the roof.

"Proud of yourself, are you, by a victory over a venerable elder?" Kenshin asked, when Sano gave him a grin, still flushed from his victory.

"It was hard won," Sano defended himself. "You, wanna try me?"

"He's mannerly, this one." The old man remarked, jerking his chin at Kenshin.

Kenshin shook his head, the ghost of a smile on his mouth, before he leaned back against a chest, eyes shut.

"It's been close to a year since I've been this way. Come tomorrow, when we reach Dhannagiri," the old man said. "There will be a fair amount of work and me with a lame arm. If you're looking to make a coin or two, I could use an extra set of hands to help work the forge for a day or two."

Sano lifted a brow. "What sort of coin? From what I hear, smithing is hard work."

Ayog laughed. "A quarter of what I take in, in coin and trade. Dhannagiri is close to 600 people and they pay well."

Sano shrugged, hiding the elation of such a lucrative offer behind a casual inclination of his head. "Mind you, I'm not looking for a career, but I've nothing better to do."

"Ha," the old man snorted. "You haven't got the stamina or the patience to be a smith. But you'll do for the grunt work."


Dhannagiri, when they reached it early the next day, was a sprawling village of stone and thatch houses three times the size of the last village they had stopped. There was a temple at town's center with a fine spire topped with painted ceramic tiles and a broad main street where women sat on shaded walks, looms between their knees, spinning thread and cloth.

Children ran to greet the blacksmith's wagon, trailed by a few elders, curious to see what was rolling into their village. Ayog's name was called by a few that recognized him, and the cry went up, more people coming out to the streets to greet him.

An occasion then, as he was welcomed, trading handshakes with old men, and ruffling the hair of curious children.

He parked his wagon and forge at the edge of town, and directed Sano and Kenshin to set up an awning against the side of the wagon, and then to place stone blocks and lug the solid lump of metal that was his anvil out from where he stored it in the cold forge, and sit it upon the blocks. Already villagers had begun to pester Ayog with requests. Housewives for the repair of broken kitchen utensils, for new iron griddles and pans, for the gears that worked the looms that so many of the women in this village used. Men brought broken shovels and hoes, plow heads and farm tools to be mended.

It promised to be a busy day. Some things he sold from his stock, axe heads and springs, and various cookware already forged. Other's needed the mending of heat and iron. They fired the forge early on, first with wood, then with coal the old man carried with him. And Sano found himself put to work, gripping ironwork with a pair of tongs and positioning it to the old man's liking as he pounded it upon the anvil. It was hot work and hard work and he developed a new appreciation of the old man's occupation.

Kenshin was spared the rigors of it for the most part, too many bodies around the anvil and the forge making the old man short of temper. So he was left to his own devices, which mostly entailed speaking to the villagers that came by, and promising their wants would be seen to in due order, or wondering the village.

He came back once, after finding the merchant who doubled for the town's constable and said that he'd reported the bandits chained back on the road. The constable, Kenshin said, had been preparing to gather a few impromptu deputies and head back to see if they were still there.

There was more trading for work than actual coin, and people came with bags of rice or meal, dried vegetables and spices, with trinkets or embroidery to offer for smith work.

Sano got a fine vest, high collared and sleeveless with colorful embroidery around the edges, and a handful of trinkets that Ayog had no interest in. A necklace of polished black beads, with a dangling tiger claw as a pendant. Along with a portion of the food, that Ayog promised, even with only a few measly coins, Sano felt that it was a day well spent.

He was hot and filthy from ash by the time Ayog declared the day done. An acquaintance of Ayog's had invited the old smith, and his 'apprentices' for dinner and Sano hadn't bothered to contest the claim in the face of a free meal. There was a stream not far beyond the town that the villagers used for washing and cooking, and Ayog led them to it to rinse away the day's grime. Kenshin and Sano moved down the bank from where the old man squatted, splashing water on hands and arms.

Sano had gone shirtless during the day, and he pulled his relatively clean shirt from his pack and used it to wash the grime from his skin. Kenshin sat on a rock near him, having, from the look of him having already made use of this stream earlier in the day when he'd had time to waste while the old man had been working Sano like a slave.

"Not a bad day," Sano said.

Kenshin made an agreeable sound, watching the glint of early moonlight off the gentle water of the stream while he idly twisted the tail of hair draped across his shoulder into a rope.

"It should take men not traveling at the pace of a pair of mules less than a day to reach the place we left the bandits," he remarked.

"Unless they hacked off their hands at the wrist, they'll still be there."

Kenshin gave him a look, brows drawn. "Desperate men might."

"Can't say I'd ever be that desperate. Can't say I care one way or another about those bastards. They'll get what they deserve one way or another."

He stuffed his old shirt into his pack, wet from the stream and donned his new vest and his necklace, then held out his arms and grinned at Kenshin.

"What do you think?"

Kenshin canted his head, gaze taking in his new attire. Silent a handful of breaths before he lifted his eyes to meet Sano's and said softly. "You look - - very nice. It is a fine vest."

"Yeah," Sano agreed. He dug in his pack and came out with the other trinket he'd gotten as part of his payment. A simple leather thong with little dangling pendant, that looked so aged that the metal was green and pitted from the ravages of time. The work was intricate though and Ayog after taking a brief look had said that it was likely very old and that someone had probably found it in some ruins or another. Sano liked the idea of it being an antiquity. Kenshin was sort of that, in the ideas that he held and the arts that he practiced - - or had used to practice.

"Here. I got this for you."

Kenshin reached out and took it, holding it by the thong almost reverently. He looked up past it to meet Sano's eyes. "What is it?"

"I dunno. A charm, the lady who traded it said. Old as the hills. The charm, not the lady." Sano grinned.

Kenshin closed his hand around the pendant, that look in his eye that hinted maybe he was taking it more seriously than Sano had meant it. But then sometimes Kenshin got superstitious about odd things. He'd ignore the notion of ghosts or various supernatural things, but be very, very careful around shrines and holy places, doing his best to keep them both from not offending whatever deities or spirits might be lurking around.

"Thank you, Sano." Kenshin slipped it over his head and it hung just visible in the V of his shirt.

Sano nodded, pleased. "So let's go catch up with the old man and see about dinner."


Kenshin had said what Sano looked was nice, but really a more appropriate word would have been decadent.

Sano had caught him off guard, which Sano quite often did, with the flash of a broad white grin, with the flex of tanned skin against the bleached white of native homespun linen. The open edges of the vest framing the hard planes of his chest and stomach, the fine embroidery at the sleeveless arms emphasizing the broadness of his shoulders. The necklace just made it more apparent, drawing the eye inexplicably down to taut belly and almost indecently low slung, loose trousers. It was no wonder the daughters of Ayog's friend giggled and laughed behind their hands, casting sloe eyed looks their way as they politely stood at the old man's shoulder while he exchanged greetings with his friend.

The village baker, a man of some repute in his small town, welcomed them vigorously, inviting Ayog and the two off them into his home among his family. Four daughters, two sons, a wife and a mother and a mother-in-law made for a bustling home. But his business was good and his sons were bakers in their own right now and his eldest daughter had married a farmer with a large holding. He and Ayog had been friends since Ayog had traveled with his father, an apprentice himself.

There was tea, that the daughters served around a long wooden table with fine individually carved chairs, very few of them matching. There was a daughter between himself and Sano, and Sano was flirting, one arm resting across the back of his chair, the edge of the vest revealing the hard line of his chest and the slice of one brown nipple. It was no great thing here, the people being far less modest than the people of Japan, and Sano had gone the day with no scrap of cloth above his waist, but still, it irked somewhat - - the daughter, the very pretty daughter - - leaning forward and laughing with false modesty at some remark of Sano's. And Sano grinning back. And it shouldn't have, the flirting being simply Sano letting off steam, and Kenshin knowing very well that nothing would come of it. Still - -

Kenshin took a gulp of tea, barely tasting it, the notion occurring to him of a sudden that it was jealousy he was feeling. Pure and simple and he had no right to it. He had betrayed his marriage vows, and the gods or karma or fate had taken full payment for it. Kaoru dead. Kenji dead. Taken by the sea. Payment for his sins. His failures.

His weakness. Which he still suffered. A strong man would have walked this path alone, but when Sano offered his company, he'd relented, Sano being the one thing left in the world that he loved more than life. But it had been selfishness. Because the things Sano still wanted of him he couldn't allow himself the luxury of giving. His punishment, self-inflicted and he made Sano suffer it with him.

But it had been easier that first year, when the grief still ate at him until he was hollow most days, barely aware of the road they walked. He still grieved for them, but lately, it was distant, sometimes not in the forefront of his thoughts at all. Lately, these last few months, he even found the occasion to laugh at something Sano said, or enjoy the taste of food again. Or found himself appreciating the way the muscles in Sano's back flexed when he went about some task.

Close to two years ago, he'd asked if Sano wouldn't be happier finding himself a woman and a home, and Sano had refused it. Now, the idea of Sano visiting whores and Sano flirting shamelessly with a daughter while her father and brothers were in attendance made the scars on his palms itch.

He took a breath and touched the little charm Sano had given him. Old. Sano was right there. And the old things held the most power. He knew Sano enough to know that it had been a passing thought on Sano's part, the gift, but Sano had put in honest work for it and Sano had kept it all the day, waiting to give it to him and it mattered.

He took another more measured breath, not quite understanding why, these last days, he'd been so hyperaware of things taken for granted on the trail for months before. Perhaps it had been the beating Sano had taken. Neither of them had taken great injury before this since they'd reached these shores. A long stretch of relative peace had been shattered and it had set him on edge was all. Triggered protective instincts that had been dormant for no small time, which triggered other things.

The baker's wife and two of her daughters came bearing the first course of dinner and everyone's attention became focused on that. Bowls of shukto, a dish made from diced white radish, potatoes, beans, vegetables and bitter melon. After that they brought out plain boiled white rice and dal made from red lentils. And finally, this being a meal of some import since they had guests to impress, fried fish with a thin yogurt sauce. It was the grandest meal Sano or he had partaken of in months and the simple enjoyment of food distracted Kenshin from his uneasy thoughts.

After the meal though, when all but the youngest children retreated to the low walled garden to enjoy what was left of the night in good company, Kenshin begged his leave, politely thanking the baker and his wife for their hospitality, but feeling distinctly out of place amongst the happy familial crowd. So he left Sano and Ayog accepting small tumblers of what the baker claimed proudly to be imported brandy, preferring the solitude of the night darkened village streets.

He went to the village stream, crouching to wash hands and forearms, and splash a little cool water on his face. Stayed that way for a while, listening to the croaking of frogs upstream, where the forest had encroached a little on the opposite side of the stream. Something larger rustled in the wood and he thought of bandits and jungle predators. Old reflex made his hand go for the hilt of a sword that was no longer there, and he took a breath, closing his fist over nothing. Crouched there silently until a large, rodent like creature waddled out from the woods and plunged its snout into the water.

He blew out his breath and rose, and it froze, black eyes fixed on him in fright. He inclined his head at it, moving away and allowing it the stream. Back to Ayog's wagon at the edge of town, where bedrolls could be made under the awning. The hairs on the back of his arms prickled before he reached the shadows under the tarp, and he hesitated, but it was only Sano leaning against the wagon's side, half swallowed by darkness.

"You didn't stay," Kenshin stated the obvious.

Sano shrugged. "And listen to two old men bullshit all night? There was only the one round of booze, so I figured - -" he shrugged again, staring at Kenshin, but it was hard to see his eyes in the shadow. The pale shape of the tiger claw stood in relief against the darker hues of his skin. Kenshin looked away, moving past him towards the back of the wagon where their packs were stored.

And stopped when Sano put out an arm, blocking his path.

"Something bothering you?"

"No." Quiet denial.

"Really? Cause I'm getting the feeling otherwise."

Kenshin shrugged, not willing to dispute Sano's observation. They were both entitled their moods. He didn't complain of Sano's sulks or bad tempers, when they came upon him.

Sano made a sound, a sort of frustrated half laugh, and shifted, crowding Kenshin between himself and the side of the wagon, both palms on the wood to either side of Kenshin's shoulders. Breath stalled. The skin that almost touched Sano pimpled, hair tingling. He could not make himself meet Sano's eyes, afraid of what he'd see there.

"You think I'm so stupid I can't read you by now? You're pissed at something, I'm just not sure what."

"Sano - - I'm not. Just - -" To force an escape, he'd have to brush against Sano, and he wasn't sure he ought to do that now. He just needed a night to get his emotions under control. To remind himself of all the things he had promised himself he'd no longer indulge.

There was no safe place to stare with Sano crowded in so close, so he shut his eyes and stood there, trying to calm his breathing, very much afraid the tempo of his breath might give him away.

"Sano, let me pass."

He said it blindly, and Sano made a sound, and pressed forward, full against him in the shadow of the awning. He made a sound of his own, an exhalation of surprised breath at the shock of Sano's solid weight against him. The unmistakable feel of Sano's half hard erection against his stomach. His own stirring one. He bared his teeth, no control at all over it, or the fluttering shiver of sensation in his gut.

Sano caught his wrists before he could lift them to shove him away, and leaned there, very much in a position of leverage, mouth against Kenshin's cheek. "Does it bother you, when I talk with the pretty girls?"

"Let go, Sano," he jerked against Sano's hold and Sano pressed harder. He could bring a knee up and move him that way, but he wasn't at that desperate point yet, to half cripple Sano in his efforts to flee him.

"You wanna wrestle? I'm game. I'm thinking something a little more full contact than just pinning an arm, huh?"

Sano pressed a thigh between his legs, rubbing hard against his genitalia and it betrayed him. Absolutely and fully roused to the contact and no way to deny it. For a handful of heartbeats he couldn't think, he couldn't get past the sensation, the utter pain pleasure of the body's need too long denied. Then the guilt flooded back, shuffling itself between what his body wanted and all the reasons in his head he had to deny it. He slammed his skull back against the rough wood of the wagon hard enough to see stars, needing that pain to draw focus from the other. Again and the pain blossomed bright and red.

"Idiot," Sano snarled at him, breath hot in his ear. "You gonna punish us both forever?

Then he pushed away. And there was no answer to that. No standing there with embarrassing bulges straining at both their pants, so he silently stalked away, fleeing Sano and the pressures Sano brought to bear.

Sano didn't pursue him, or even call after him. No small relief, since Kenshin's head was throbbing as much from guilty turmoil as his self-inflicted knock. Back to the stream and across it, using a few smooth rocks to make his way. He walked the forested bank, concentrating on nothing more complex than the path under his sandals. The stream wound its way into the forest beyond the borders of the town and he followed it, finally feeling the tension bleed away as the village itself did. Just trees then and nighttime sounds and he stopped, leaning a shoulder against the bole of a smooth barked tree. The pressure in his pants had gone away, but his head still throbbed. He lifted a hand and gingerly touched the small knot at the back of his skull.

He was an idiot. He felt one now, too many confusing emotions churning about. Guilt foremost among them. A fleeting image of her face crossed his mind. Almost he looked for her in the darkness, a quiet slim shape in the shadows. He'd seen glimpses of her often in those first months after her death. Glimpses though a crowd, or in the shadows of a trail. It was his own brand of insanity, he knew. Though he did not disbelieve in ghosts and spirits of the dead, he did not believe in hers. His own insurmountable guilt at the best; worst case, broken sanity.

He'd been content enough with the notion of his own private haunting. But it had been a while since he'd seen them. He'd had fleeting thoughts at best of them these last weeks, thoughts distracted by other things. Perhaps that's why Sano had been so prominent in his mind. Sano, who he ought to be angry at, but admitted to himself that holding that grudge would be unfair. Sano had been practicing restraint for a long while. Sano had been patient and patience went against Sano's nature. What made it worse was that Sano was right.

The forest was full of dark shadows now, of twisted roots and undergrowth and unknown things living within it. Foolish to wonder so far because he'd been too cowardly to stay and face Sano on the hind end of what he hesitated to call an argument. There had been very little of argument about it. He picked his way back to the stream and took his time heading back to towards the village. Sano was gone from the black smith's wagon when he found his way back and that was just as well. There would be an argument tonight otherwise, with Sano in a temper and Kenshin feeling prickly and in the wrong on so many accounts.

Kenshin folded his blanket and sat against the wagon wheel, not comfortable enough even in this seemingly peaceful place, to sleep outright. Half his life he'd taken his rests this way, half dozing, always aware of the sounds around him, even in the clutch of light sleep. As much call for it now as during the uneasy years alone on the road after the Meiji restoration, since Sano slept like the dead. Nights like those, he missed the sword.

Sano had likely returned to the baker's house, for some while later, both he and Ayog returned, neither one of them particularly quiet in the darkness. Kenshin didn't raise his head, simply slouched there, listening to them fumble in the shadows, the old man climbing to the back of his wagon and his berth there, and Sano flinging out his bedroll and falling into it, back turned strategically towards Kenshin.

Holding a grudge then, for something he'd started. That was fine, too.

The killing Edge-Chapter 2

I've got the second chapter of "The Killing Edge".

These will also be posted on the fiction page of Bishonenworks



Chapter two

They moved as fast as Sano was able, avoiding the road, heading north east of the village. The darkness was cover from easy pursuit and Kenshin could only hope that it might be an hour or more before the English Captain either regained consciousness or was discovered and pursuit began. Sano, which Sano was proud to boast, was very good at ignoring pain and physical injury when expediency demanded it of him. Oh, he’d moan and beg pity if there was no dire need and a soft bed and someone to wait on him hand and foot while he recovered, but in a pinch, he was better than Kenshin at pushing the pain aside and powering through.

They found a spot near dawn, well away from any road, a little rocky alcove near a stream within the shelter of woods. After poking around to make sure nothing else had claimed the spot, Sano tossed his blanket down and fell upon it, the taut way he clenched his jaw the only indication of just how sore he was. Kenshin pulled his own blanket from his pack and gave it to Sano.

“Sleep while you can. I’ll take first watch.”

Sano didn’t complain over that. He bunched Kenshin’s blanket into a ball, stuffed it under his head and didn’t open his eyes thereafter.

Kenshin sat with his back to a tree outside the little shelter and listened to the sounds of the forest as it stirred with dawn’s approach. Listened for any disturbance of it, that might indicate the movement of men near the wood. They’d put hours between themselves and the village, but still determined pursuit might close that distance.

He clenched his right fist, watching the pale scar tissue of a wound long healed flex. His sword hand, that hadn’t gripped the hilt of a sword since he’d thrown the sakabatou into the sea. The night he’d truly understood that Kaoru and Kenji were dead. The night he’d gone dead inside. And remained that way since, walking, eating, breathing, skimming the surface of the world without ever truly caring what transpired around him in it.

Tonight, seeing Sano’s battered face - - the anger that had welled had been the first real emotion that had pierced that shell since Madras. Since before Madras - - since he’d heard the news that her ship had gone down a day out from the city. That’s when things had stopped mattering. That’s when he’d let part of himself drown.

He looked at Sano, legs curled up to accommodate his long form in the little nook, bruising beginning to darken to its full glory, blood and grime streaking his skin. Still swollen and red around the cuts. He’d donned his shirt, so it was hard to see the damage on his torso.

He’d gone into that fight for the sake of a man he didn’t know, without hesitation. And Kenshin had to wonder, if it had been him who had passed by a casual beating in the privacy of a dark alley, if he would have cared enough to intercede. He thought not. He would have before - - but now, during the months they had wondered India - - he wasn’t so sure. How many times during the past year had he passed blithely by, encased in his shell of numb as injustices happened? Nothing, not even Sano, strong enough to rouse enough interest in him to simply care.

He took a breath, looking away from Sano, feeling a shudder of unease. He wasn’t even sure how long they’d been here. Many months surely, but the seasonal changes where they'd traveled were minimal, hot year round. He had nothing to go by, and there had been times early on when weeks or more may have passed with him barely aware.

He rose, unease turning to an urgent need to simply move. He made his way down to the little stream, clear water cheerily burbling around rocks and sticks in the stream bed. He stared down at his rippled reflection. Thinner than he had been the last time he’d bothered to glance at a reflection of himself. The tail of hair over his shoulder was as long as it had ever been. Dark and lank though, with weeks gone by without more than water spilled over his head.

He took another deep breath, calming a pulse that wanted to race. Crouched down and shed his shirt, wetting it in the stream and using it to wipe away dirt and grime from his skin. Sano, he thought had a sliver of soap in his pack. He tread back up the bank and quietly rifled through Sano’s bag until he found it, then went back down to the creek and did a more thorough job of it.

Which put him an hour or so into morning and nothing to do but sit there, while his clothing and his hair dried, listening to the soft sounds of Sano’s breath as he slept. He sat so long, so quietly, that a hare across the stream crept out, unawares, rustling in the young greenery. The notion of meat for dinner crossed his mind. He could toss the little knife he’d been given by the Indian woman who had sheltered them when they’d first come here, and take it out from here. Perhaps even with a small round river rock if his aim was up to par. Only there were none within his reach and moving to get one would only frighten the animal away. A fire would be a risk in the light of day regardless. The smoke drifting up out of the wood a sure sign for anyone on their trail.

So he sat and watched it come and go. Watched a lizard scurry down to the stream and sun itself on a flat rock. The birds chattered in the branches, a great variety of them. A pair of small spotted deer ventured out, further down, dipping their delicate noses in the water, ears twitching.

It would have been easy to drowse, but he feared discovery and Sano had taken enough abuse for the present. Sano’s mistreatment spurred him to more concern for his own safety than he’d felt for some while and made him wonder what had gone unnoticed by him these past months. He felt some guilt for it, now that he dwelled on it, his own lack of appreciation for Sano and Sano’s companionship. Surely he had been no great company these long months.

He let Sano sleep far longer than the time they would normally have split their watches when they slept in uncertain places. Finally when the afternoon had melted away and dusk again approached, he shook Sano awake. Sano started, jerking up defensively, eyes darting, fists balled, until he realized it was only Kenshin. Then he groaned, easing himself onto an elbow. The swelling of the one eye had gone down while he slept, and almost he could open it fully. He gave Kenshin a look that seemed baleful, considering the state of his face, but probably wasn’t, and complained.

“You didn’t wake me for my turn at watch.”

“No,” Kenshin agreed. “I’ll take a few hours now, until it’s dark enough to move again.”

Sano grunted and pushed himself up, crawling out of the alcove and holding out a hand to Kenshin to help gain his feet. One could imagine a body gone very, very stiff and sore.

A few curses ensued as he staggered off to the side and peed in the leaves. Then he went down the bank to the stream and sat ungracefully on the rocks at the bank, feet in the water as he bent over, dragging handfuls of water up to his face.

“Wait,” Kenshin cautioned, and followed him down with a rag he’d rinsed earlier. “Let me see, Sano.”

Sano grimaced and turned his face for Kenshin to take closer account of. He dipped the rag and wiped blood and dirt away from the cuts. Sano sighed, closing his eyes, leaning back while Kenshin cleaned the wounds. He pushed the collar of Sano’s shirt aside, baring a nasty bruise on his shoulder. More on his torso. They had not been kind.

His fingers lingered on the taut muscle over Sano’s ribs. Sano could take a hit well. Sano prided himself on it. From the shape of these bruises, they’d used batons.

“I’ll be fine in a couple of days,” Sano said and Kenshin tore his gaze away from the discoloration of Sano’s flesh to his eyes. Realized his fingers had lingered, brushing skin that he hadn’t touched for a very long time and drew them away.

Sano canted his head a little, that look in his eyes that speculated things better left unspeculated. No less aware than Kenshin how long it had been since they had been anything but casual companions.

Kenshin wrung the rag out, lying in on a rock next to Sano, and rose. “Just give me a few hours, then wake me. I will not feel comfortable until we have at least another full night’s travel between us and them.”

Sano shrugged, comfortably sprawled on his flat rock with his feet in cool water.

“A few hours,” he agreed.


Captain Robert Worthington II had been born in India. The son of a career military man of some repute he had been commissioned into the Queen’s Royal Regiment as a Lieutenant after graduating from the Royal Military Collage in Sandhurst. Like his father before him, he had served with distinction throughout India and Burma. His father, the right honorable Lt. Col Robert Worthington Senior, had died during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 when the sepoys under his command had mutinied in Gwalior. That had been the death knoll for Company rule in India and control of the colonies had been turned over to the Crown and all the resources of Victoria’s military.

To this day, Worthington believed his father had practiced too much leniency with his native troops. He believed that his father, who had, according to his mother, held a great fondness for the people of India, might have avoided the mutiny that had taken his life, if he’d looked upon the dark skinned natives of this land as the savages they were. Worthington had little tolerance for the varied heathen faiths, the superstitions, the sullen resentment of the native populace towards the civilized rule of Anglo Saxons.

When the stirrings of insurrections began in the form of attacks on British convoys, south of Amjhera, he had jumped at the chance to volunteer for the duty of chasing down rumors of insurrection and squashing them. The 49th Royal Light Infantry had developed no small reputation as a squad to be reckoned with.

He’d been following the trail of rumors and the reports of local constabularies for the last several months, of murders on the road, and whispers of renewed stirrings of the notorious Thugee cult spreading unrest among the peasantry. He was not sure he believed that particular rumor, the British army having gone a long way to wiping out the vicious Thugee’s some while back, but one never knew what might be stirring in the back country and the hills where clans and tribes dwelled that seldom if ever had contact with the English speaking natives of more civilized India.

He had been on his way to meet with the regional military commander at the home of the provincial magistrate Sir Porter, when the situation with the foreigners had occurred. Chinese, if he were any judge, but then his service had been restricted to India and Burma and he had little familiarity with the Chinese provinces to the east. General Fletcher, the regional commander did, having served during the last Opium War with China, and having spent a great deal of time in the eastern orient before his tour here in India. There were even rumors that General Fletcher had taken an Asian wife that he’d introduced to European society in both their youths. Worthington frowned upon the mixing of races, but a man of Fletcher’s standing, with his long and distinguished career in the service of her Majesty, might be due his occasional eccentricity.

If he had believed in the remote possibility that Chinese spies might be involved in some uprising of the Thugee cult, he might have steeled himself to report the embarrassing incident to Fletcher in his meeting. But fanatical Indian seditionists, much less zealous Thugee’s had issues with foreigners of any sort, Anglo or East Asian, and would be unlikely to be in cahoots. Worthington’s pride, which had taken no small blow, rather insisted he keep the incident that had found him waking at the crack of dawn in a dirty alley, to himself. He still found himself amazed that they’d gotten the drop on him. Thinking about it, and he found himself dwelling on it all too often, trying to wrap his mind around how he’d had the tip of blade at the throat of the shorter one, one moment, and the next, he’d been blinking himself awake, head pounding.

He’d had a word or two with the local constable, who’d been frankly amazed that the cell they’d had their prisoner in was empty. He’d sent a patrol out, but it had been hours after the fact. Still, the two were Asian in a land full of Indians, and might not be hard to find, if descriptions were passed thoroughly enough. He’d find them and see justice done.

The estate of Sir Porter was a sprawling, stone affair that would have looked perfectly at ease in the pastoral English countryside. The grounds were immaculate, the gardens lush and well tended. When Worthington and his young British aide, Corporal Culpepper rode up, they were escorted to the gardens at the back, where Sir Porter and his wife were taking lunch with General Fletcher. Mrs. Porter directed her native servant to fetch tea settings for both Worthington and his aide, but young Culpepper politely refused, and went to stand by the garden doors, while Worthington sat with the gentry.

Manners dictated he take his tea and wait until the lady had retired, before settling down to speak of matters suited for male ears. He gave his report to Fletcher, and spoke of the unrest he had routed in the village outside Porter’s estate.

“It was a shoddily done job,” Porter said, upon hearing of the villager’s complaints. “If I rewarded them for it, they’d only be encouraged to more shoddy work. They should be grateful I don’t raise taxes to make up for it.”

“As you say, Sir Porter.” Worthington’s respect for the man rose. A firm hand was what these people needed. Coddling would only make them lazy and unproductive.

“Do the waters flow to your fields from this aqueduct?” Fletcher sipped at his tea, holding the china cup with a certain delicacy in large, blunt fingers.

Porter raised a bristle brow. “Yes. But that’s hardly the point. A weeklong job took ten days, and my overseer had no end of problems with worker complaints. Good English workers would have had it done properly in a handful of days.”

“Good English workers would have demanded ten times the pay and howled bloody murder if they didn’t have their lunch breaks and their pay in a timely manner.”

Porter snorted, laughing, very likely not perceiving the underlying hint of scorn in Fletcher’s voice. “God help us, if the scent of unionization ever crops up here, eh, old man?”

Fletcher didn’t seem to find the notion amusing. In fact Fletcher didn’t seem to find much at all amusing, his craggy face like stone. He turned his attention from Porter to Worthington, and began a more in depth discussion of regional troop deployment.

Worthington left the estate with orders little changed from when he’d come. Fletcher might have had issue with Porter’s disregard of his native workforce, but he had little sympathy for those that threatened the interests of the crown. Whatever means necessary, to curb a possible repeat of the riots that had taken so many British lives during the last rebellion, had been his order and Worthington had silently reveled in it. If he could prevent what his father could not, it would be fitting tribute.



Two days of traveling at night, sleeping during the day and living off the land. Berries and tuberous roots made up their diet, since Kenshin was damned and determined to avoid even the chance of discovery until he was comfortable that they’d shaken any pursuit. Which meant even though the streams were plentiful and they might have caught fish, no fire to cook them over. And though Sano liked sashimi as well as the next man, he wasn’t so sure he wanted it of the minnow variety.

But on the third day, when the worst of Sano’s aches had began to fade and his bruises to yellow, Kenshin finally let up, and conceded that maybe, they might risk traveling again during daytime, long as they kept from the main roads. Perhaps even, if Sano wanted, they might stop and do a bit of fishing, set up camp and make a small fire to cook it by.

Sano figured Kenshin was as tired of eating raw roots as he was. And traveling in the Indian forest at night was damned treacherous, there being a lot more things in the lush, tropical forests here that might put a man in peril than there were at home in the forests of Japan.

They’d been skirting the edge of a decent sized stream for the last night of travel. Slow moving and placid, with a rise of forest-covered hills on the far side, and grassy, flat land on the shore they walked. There were enough trees for ample cover, should cover be needed, but they’d stayed far from roads and it was doubtful any army patrol would happen upon them here.

Sano had a net that he’d picked up from an old man in a village outside Surai. A small net, that was only good for the shallows near a stream or a river shore, but he’d gotten half good at fishing with it and he’d never been particularly good at fishing before. He’d never had the patience for it.

He made a haul of small silvery fish with red tipped scales. Hand length mostly, but fat enough that they promised a decent bit of meat. He’d done the fishing, so it was only fair Kenshin to the gutting and the scaling. So Sano sat back against a smooth rock under a tree not too far from the stream shore and relaxed in the warm late afternoon heat. He watched Kenshin make short work of the six fish he’d netted, then prepare them for cooking.

Kenshin was a better cook by far than Sano, better than Kaoru used to be by a long shot. Sano would have skewered the fish on sticks and charred them over the flames. Kenshin took out their dwindling supply of spices and sparingly dressed the fish before wrapping them in leaves and lying them carefully near the edges of the small fire he’d built, to steam. It had been a while since he’d taken the initiative, food seeming to have little interest for him this last year or more. He ate because he had to survive and took none of the pleasure Sano did out of t he process. Which meant Sano hadn’t had a lot of particularly palatable meals on the road. It made the need to find the odd job or two and gain a little coin in his pocket to buy decent meals all the more vital.

He shut his eyes, happily drowsing as the smell of steaming fish began to permeate the air. For a long while Kenshin sat silently across from him, only occasionally poking the fire with a stick to shift coals.

Then, quietly, “I have not been good company of late.”

Sano cracked an eye, studying Kenshin as Kenshin studied the dancing flames. “Yeah, you’ve sucked.”

Kenshin looked up at him from under the fall of bangs, a dappled patch of sunlight catching the odd color of his eyes. Pretty color, when the light hit them right, like the darkest part of violet petals. “Why have you stayed?”

Sano almost laughed, but there was a level seriousness in Kenshin’s gaze that stopped him from a flippant answer. This was Kenshin asking and Kenshin hadn’t seemed to particularly care up until now. Something had shifted and Sano thought maybe it had been triggered by his getting his ass kicked. Worth the pain maybe if it pierced the shell Kenshin had erected around himself.

“I figured sooner or later, you’d get better. It’s not like I need your good mood to enjoy myself, anyway.”

Kenshin kept staring, hands very still on his knees, like he was trying to get inside Sano’s head. Kenshin understood people better than he let on. He read them like books and then he pretended obliviousness. But Sano thought, he’d always been able - - not that he actively tried - - to confound Kenshin, now and then.

He could have said something like ‘I don’t abandon the people I love,’ but that would have sounded womanish and Sano balked at that embarrassment. Besides, he’d already said it and once ought to be enough, damnit.

Kenshin seemed to maybe understand though, because he hunched his shoulders a little, before letting out a breath and casting Sano the ghost of a wry smile. "No, you enjoy yourself very well, without any help from me. Too much, in fact. I would have liked to explore the temple at Durobi more thoroughly."

"Ha," Sano laughed, remembering the hurried trek out of that particular town well, even if he had been staggeringly drunk. "At least I didn't knock the head of the local regiment on his ass. After a couple of miles, villagers get tired and go back home."

Kenshin sighed. "It seemed the thing to do at the time."

"So - - that fish ready yet?"

It was and after days of nothing but berries and tubers, it was as tasty a meal as Sano could recall having. There was nothing left but very neat skeletons when they were done. Still they buried the leaves and the bones to avoid attracting curious predators at night, and sat well after dusk, allowing themselves the luxury of simply relaxing.

Sano hesitated to start a conversation that Kenshin would retreat from, but it had been a damned long time since he'd brought up the subject of home and people they'd left behind.

"So - - you think the kid's doing okay? With the dojo and all?"

Almost, Sano thought Kenshin was going to shut down, refusing to even acknowledge talk of home and the things that mattered there, so twisted up inside with pain over what he'd lost that he couldn't deal with the memories of it. Part of Sano thought it was cowardice on Kenshin's part, the refusal to deal with the past, because of the pain it caused. Hell, the whole trek through India was him running from memories the best he knew how and here Sano was on his heels. But then, with all the other things that Kenshin delved head on into, putting his life on the line with out a shed of hesitation - - well, maybe he was due that one weakness. Maybe Sano wasn't one to judge, having weaknesses of his own. Didn't every man?

But Kenshin surprised him finally, running a hand through his hair, raking it off his forehead for a moment before it fell back down. "I think Yahiko will thrive. He was courting Tsubame - -perhaps by now, he's even asked her to marry him."

"No shit? I can't even imagine the kid married."

"He's not a kid - - he's eighteen - - or is it nineteen? - - now. He'll be a good master for the dojo. He'll uphold the honor of her name and her father's name. Better than I would have - -"

Kenshin broke off, stared out at the glint of moonlight rippling the water of the stream, swallowing.

"Why? Because you would have run?"

Kenshin cast him a glance, but Sano couldn't see if it were guilt or accusation in his eyes. Finally though. "Yes. Without her there - -them, there - - the walls hold nothing for me. Even if I had been there - -in Tokyo - - I would not have stayed."

"Yeah." Sano lay back in the grass and stared at the sky, clear and sparkling with stars. "Sometimes running's what you have to do to survive."

Kenshin took a breath, lay back finally on the grass an arms length from Sano. Safe distance, but still there was a sense of camaraderie - - of them being closer than they had in a long time that made Sano's pulse race a little. He didn't do anything but lie there though, and silently share the sky.

Sometimes silence spoke more than all the words in the world anyway.



Two weeks meandering their way northeast, careful to avoid notice on the few roads they walked. Mostly they kept to the edges of the forest, where hunting small game was easy and shelter was plentiful. Not too deep into the forests, which had gradually become greener and denser than the dryer woodlands of the south, because things lurked there that a man who didn't know the nature of all the predators that dwelled in these lands, held great respect for.

Kenshin had spotted a tiger yesterday, padding down to drink at the same stream he and Sano had stopped at, some ways down on the other side of the water. He'd seen one before, at a greater distance, and been duly impressed. Thirty yards distant and this one was more impressive still. He had frozen and Sano had, when he tugged on his sleeve to alert him of her presence, and they'd stared, mesmerized while she drank her fill, then languidly padded back into the cover of trees.

He'd heard tales in the villages they'd passed, of the occasional beast that developed a taste for human flesh, but for the most part, tigers avoided men. Just as well, for the notion of killing one - - if he were lucky enough to be on the winning side of such a conflict - - was abhorrent.

They'd veered sharply east from her territory and after another day or two of walking, come upon a dirt road with forest on one side and a rough-hewn irrigation canal on the other. It was no unusual sight, even in the remotest of areas. Agriculture was the life's blood of this country, and every village and town farmed something. They kept to the road, which seemed little traveled, and eventually came to pockets of crops amidst the forests. Sugar Cane mostly, young and green.

A boy with a straw basket over his shoulder came out of the forest from a footpath, onto the road ahead of them and Sano hailed him, asking what villages lay ahead. The boy eyed them warily, but weaponless as they were, they must have seemed little threat, because he shrugged and listed off a few names as he trudged along. Mostly small villages and farming outposts, the largest being a town four days walk away, where the women, the boy claimed, were famed for the quality of their weaving and their dyes.

They walked with him down the road, the boy having grown comfortable in their company, and glad for the security of two grown men. The roads were questionable in their safety, he said. Though no one in his village of twenty related farmers had been robbed, they'd heard tales from travelers of bandits on the roads.

And as if to justify the rumors, perhaps a half-mile further down, they came upon a flock of scavenger birds, fighting amongst themselves for some feast off the forested side of the road. The boy, as boys tended to do, ran ahead, waving his arms to chase away the birds and see what gory treasure they'd been pecking at. But he stopped, frozen and gagging as he stood at the edge of trampled grasses, and when Sano came up behind him, he swore and caught the boy's thin shoulder and propelled him back onto the road and away from the sight.

Kenshin took stock of it himself in their wake. A body in the brush. The stench of it this close near to overwhelming. He clenched his teeth and drew air through his mouth, casting a glance back to Sano, who was keeping himself between the body and the boy. Small enough protection since the boy had already seen the bloated remains. The birds had been well about their work, and there was little recognizable left of what had been a man. He hesitated to ask the boy to look again and see if he knew the man.

"He's been dead more than a day," Kenshin guessed. "Has anyone been missing from your village since yesterday?"

The boy shook his head. "I don't know. I don't think so. I came this way yesterday, but stayed with farmer Dipu over night - - I didn't see him then."

Likely the boy hadn't, if the corpse had been fresher and not yet discovered by the scavenger birds.

"We can't leave him for the birds," Kenshin said and Sano groaned a little, not happy with the prospect of going too near a body that had its insides dribbling out. But it was the decent thing to do, until the boy could summon the adults of his village to come and deal with it properly. So they piled grass upon the body, and then covered it with rocks to keep the birds away and mark the place it rested.

"Do you think bandits did this?" the boy asked, when they'd done.

"I don't know," Kenshin admitted. Hard to tell without looking and he had gone out of his way not to look too closely.

By late afternoon they reached the path that diverged off the road and led to the boy's village. They parted with him there, having no desire to be remembered by the villagers when and if they reported the discovery of the body to the local authorities.

"He didn't have a purse," Sano said once the boy was well down his own path. "Or a pack. A man traveling these parts would have one or the other, don't you think?"

"I would think," Kenshin agreed.

"Do you think it was bandits?"

"I don't know. If he'd been killed by an animal, likely it would have dragged him further into the jungle, I would think."

"I'd think, too. Man doesn't just drop dead on the side of the road for nothing."

"It's not entirely beyond belief."

Sano snorted, glancing into the shadows of the forest to their left warily, convincing himself that there were thieves lying in wait.

They made camp without incident, though they traded watches throughout the night, neither one of them trusting to good fortune to see them through.

It rained the next morning. A misting drizzle that made the leaves glisten and the road muddy. Clothes became sodden, and packs heavier with added moisture, but there was nothing for it, but to walk.

They broke their fast on mango, which Sano had stuffed their packs with, after finding a tree of ripe fruit. The rain kept up, creating a mist low to the ground as it competed with the heat. The forest was quiet and still with it, animals having the sense to go to ground someplace warm and dry. One might question why they still trudged through it, having no particular destination in mind. But men often exhibited less common sense than animals in such regards.

The gray afternoon revealed the dark shape of a wagon ahead on the road, stalled in its progress. A tall covered vargo, with faded paint on the wooden sides and all manner of objects, from metal harness pieces, to pots and pans to mysterious pieces of metalwork that Kenshin had no notion what they might be used for hanging from hooks off its sides. They all jangled, swinging precariously as the pair of mules hitched to the wagon's front strained to pull it forward.

It wasn't the wagon itself that caused the delay, but the smaller cart with what looked to be a traveling forge, attached behind it, one wheel stuck securely in a muddy rut. The old man sitting perched on the tall seat at the front of the van cursed in several languages, urging the animals on.

"Need a hand?" Sano called up, standing in the rain beside the front wheel.

The old man cursed again, hand going for the knife at his side.

"Damn you for coming upon a man unannounced," he glared down at them. "What do you want?"

Sano held out his hands, and Kenshin made sure the old man could plainly see his own, the both of them unarmed.

"We don't want anything," Sano said. "Just offered a little help. We're just as fine heading on our way."

The old man narrowed one eye, the other seemed a little opaque. His face was broad, his shoulders were. His arms, despite his age, thick with muscle. "Just a pair of travelers enjoying the fine day, are you?"

Sano shrugged. "We're not bandits, if that's what you're thinking."

"As if a pair of bandits would announce themselves as such."

"Sure. We'll be on our way then. Good luck to you."

The old man snorted, then waved a hand sharply towards the rear of his little caravan.

"Damned forge is stuck. Get behind her, if you want and give her a push."

The forge was a solid chunk of metal, a traveling furnace that weighed no small amount. It was muddy, hard work getting behind it and helping to rock it out of the pit the wheel was stuck in. The old man cursed at the mules and cursed at them and at his gods on every breath, until finally, with a suckling plop, the mud gave up its hold on the wheel and the little cart lurched out of the rut.

Sano went down on one knee in the mud behind it, but they were both already brown with it up to their chests, so it hardly mattered. He crouched there, one hand in the mud, breathing hard from the exertion. Kenshin did the same, bent over his knees, hair and mud and water streaming across his face.

The wagon shuddered to a halt and the old man leaned around the corner to glare at them. The one pale eye, next to the dark one, in the midst of his craggy face gave him an unsettling demeanor. He worked his mouth, as if he were struggling to get out words of gratitude. Finally he nodded briskly and said. "Can't be too careful on the road now days."

It was not exactly thanks, but one got the feeling that this particular old man did not often practice social niceties.

He slapped the reins and the mules slowly lurched into motion, pulling the creaking wagon along. A man afoot was hardly slower than the plodding pace of the smith's caravan. Short of falling back and resting off the side of the road to let the old man gain distance on them, there was nothing to do but walk along behind the wagon.

Finally, the old man looked back around the edge of the wooden van and asked.

"The two of you headed for Dhannagiri?"

"That the village where the women are known for their weaving?" Sano asked.

The old man narrowed his one good eye and nodded. "It is. Never been there?"

"This is the first time we've traveled this road." Kenshin said. "The first we've been this far north."

"Is it?" The old man turned back around, watching the road and the broad backs of his mules. "Foreigners, are you?"

"We are." Kenshin agreed.

"What gave us away?" Sano asked and the old man glanced back around with a scowl, before he shook his head and returned his eyes to the road.

"Been all the way to Peking, myself. I've seen a Chinaman or two."

"Yeah, well, you haven't seen two more today," Sano said.

"We're Japanese," Kenshin said, moving off the road to walk in the grass at the side of it, keeping pace with the wagon and the old man.

"Long way from home then. Never been that far myself. I'm not fond of ships."

A sentiment Kenshin could agree with. If he never boarded another sea going vessel again, he would feel no regret.

The day wore on, and eventually the rain stopped, leaving a road not much less treacherous with caked, drying mud. The old man wasn't much for small talk, and spent most of the day ignoring their presence.

Come late afternoon, they passed a bisecting road and a trio of ragged, weary seeming travelers. Two men and a teenaged boy, w ho waved them down, and asked how many days travel it was to Dhannagiri.

The old man begrudgingly slowed his mules and replied another day and a half.

"We've heard of bandits on the roads, especially after dark. Might we travel with you to Dhannagiri for the sake of safety?" the eldest seeming of the lot asked.

The two older men wore turbans, one sporting a full beard, the other a scruffy growth of whiskers. The boy, who might have been sixteen, was bare headed and skinny. The lot of them were as mud spattered and road weary as Kenshin suspected he and Sano were. They seemed harmless enough, poor travelers with a single pack among them, and weaponless as far as Kenshin could tell. Still, something about them made the skin on the back of his arms prickle. Perhaps it was the boy's eyes. The men wore nothing but honest weariness on their faces, but the boy's eyes flicked here and there, taking in the wagon, taking in Sano and himself in an attempt at furtiveness that he was too young to have perfected.

Of course, it might as well have been a boy, wary of strangers and frightened by too many tales of bandit butchery to trust them not to be predators themselves.

"I've no control over who walks the road," the old man snorted, slapping the reins and his team into motion again. "Travel where you want."

So the little group moved out onto the road with them, taking the wooded side, while Kenshin and Sano walked on the grass bordering the canal. Kenshin slowed his pace a little, dropping behind so he could watch the strangers and Sano accommodatingly shortened his strides to match him.

Sano seemed little concerned, chewing on a stem of young, wild sugar cane that he'd found sprouted on this side of the canal.

"A great many travelers to converge at once, on such a back road," Kenshin remarked quietly.

Sano canted his head, glancing at him, then ahead at the backs of the three men. "You don't trust them?"

Kenshin shrugged. "I don't know them."

During certain times and places in his life, that alone would have been enough to suspect. At times, even a decade and more after the fact, he still found himself drifting back into the mindset of a hitokiri. Trust nothing and no one. He took a breath, trying to shake off the feeling. Not at all sure it was not ingrained paranoia creating concern where there was no cause.

"So we take turns at watch tonight," Sano said. "None of them look like they'd be much trouble in a fight."

"Hnn." Kenshin didn't bother to disagree. He'd known no few assassins that had seemed as inept and innocent as newborn babes. He'd used that tactic himself a time or two to gain advantage.

Come dusk, when the road became difficult to navigate for a team of mules hauling a top heavy wagon and an ungainly forge, the old man pulled off to a clearing on the side, with a surly warning to all concerned that he wanted no beggars round his fire asking for a taste of his supper. He unhitched his team and tethered them near the tall grass where they could graze to their hearts content, then went about building a little campfire where he proceeded to cook simple fare of boiled rice.

Sano and Kenshin could have traveled on, not so picky about traveling the road at night, but Kenshin balked, that uncertainty still making the hairs stand up on his skin. He hesitated at leaving the old man, surly and unsocial as he was, alone in the company of the three travelers.

So they laid out their own bedrolls at the edge of the wood, not far from the mules, where there was a clear view of the spot that the three travelers had settled.

Though the old man was stingy with his food, he did relent with his tea, and added water to the pot, offering weak, watered down brew to the group at large. Sano and Kenshin ate the last of their fruit, and drank tea from their own battered cups, while the three travelers did the same, the lot of them gathered around the old man's fire.

"You're a blacksmith?" Sano asked, after he'd tossed the pit of his second mango into the fire.

The old man gave him a narrow look and asked dryly. "What gave me away, boy?"

Sano grinned, pleased no doubt that the old man had recalled his earlier insolence. "I didn't think you hauled that hunk of metal around for good luck."

"It's brought me my share. Aye, I'm a smith."

"Honest profession," Sano said. "I've known a few here and there. Good men. Great to have at your back in a brawl."

The old man gave Sano a closer look. His mouth twitched slightly in a smile.

Kenshin looked across the fire at the travelers and asked quietly. "What is it that you travel to Dhannagiri for?"

The boy blinked at him, surprised that he'd asked. But the oldest of the men, the one with the full, grey speckled beard smiled and said. "The wedding of my niece. It will be a fine celebration."

"I wish her good fortune." Kenshin inclined his head slightly. "From where do you hail?"

"Chagahri, a small village to the west. Do you know it?" the man asked.

"I've heard of it," the smith said. "Farmers, mostly."

"Yes," the man nodded, still smiling, yellowed teeth against dark beard. He looked back to Kenshin. "And you? You come from a greater distance yet, no?"

"A great distance, yes," Kenshin agreed, not smiling back.

The talk dwindled as the fire crackled low. The old man retired to the back of his wagon to sleep, while the rest of them retreated to their separate spots.

Kenshin urged Sano to take his sleep, having no inclination to find his own. He settled though, in his blankets next to Sano, in the pretense of sleep, and lay listening to the sounds of nightlife in the forest, the croak and splash of the occasional frog in the canal, the soft sounds of Sano's breath. The three travelers lay quiet and still in their own spot, a cluster of dark forms near the forest edge.

The fire died down to nothing, and even the mules quieted their rustling, dark shadows standing with their head down, dozing. There was a quiet in the forest. An unnatural silence that Kenshin almost missed entirely until one of the mules twitched an ear and lifted its head to look towards the wood. Then he heard the faint rustle of underbrush disturbed.

He nudged Sano. Saw the white of his eye as he blinked himself awake, and jerked his own head towards the woods. There were multiple bodies out there - - he could distinguish the sound of men trying to tread quietly through uncooperative underbrush. Two, three - - maybe another approaching from the right. If they'd been watching them, they'd go for he and Sano first - - the two of them the more dangerous threat. They could take the old man and his wagon full of possessions with more ease then.

He pushed himself up, quieter by far in the darkness than the converging predators, and heard a yell. The boy across the clearing, who'd been no more sleeping than he had, screaming warning, now that the surprise was lost, and men spilled out of the forest.

He spun on a dark shadow hurtling towards him. A man with a dagger, that he blocked on the way down, snaring the man's wrist even as he kicked his knee in, using his other hand to help him down, a palm in his face slamming his head into the ground. He tumbled forward as another rushed at him, trying to snare him with the thin wire of a garrote the man held between his hands. Heard the grunt and thud of Sano taking on his own opponents and couldn't spare the time to look and see. Trusting Sano to handle his own affairs.

They were screaming like devils, men spilling out of the darkness, more than the three or four that he'd first assumed stalking the forest and that not even counting the three they had taken into their company. But none of them armed with more than daggers and clubs and none of them proficient with the use of them. Clumsy, desperate men who'd reckoned surprise and numbers would win the day. Not reckoning at all on encountering men who knew a thing or two about fighting.

It was a jumbled confusion in the darkness, and he took down anything that wasn't Sano shaped, until he heard the creak of the wagon and the old man's cry, and the old man at the back door of the van, struggling with the boy, who had a rope around his neck, trying to strangle him. He left the stragglers to Sano then, the ones that hadn't turned tail and run into the woods already, and stalked the boy, who was struggling to keep control of an old man five times his age. The boy gave up the fight, before Kenshin reached him and ran, pelting into the darkness, leaving the old man gasping for air on the ground at the foot of his wagon.

Kenshin looked over his shoulder, seeking more enemies and found only Sano, dusting his hands and casually prodding a moaning shape on the ground with his foot.

Four unconscious, or barely conscious men on the ground, others fled into the darkness. A dangerous lot on the loose, responsible perhaps for the body they'd found days back on the road, if not a good many more. An inept lot though, and poorly prepared for men who made a career of robbing other men. Surely these men were not the same band responsible for attacking army supply trains and well-guarded caravans.

"Are you all right?" He held out a hand to the old man, who grimaced and accepted it, holding his other arm close to his side.

"Threw my shoulder out," the old smith complained, swearing and rotating the arm stiffly. "Damned filthy thieves - -"

Sano sauntered over, looking none the worse for wear, save for the slightly bloodied knuckles of one hand. He jerked his chin towards the sprawled bodies. "What do we do with them?"

"What they planned for us," the old smith groused. "Slit their throats and leave them for forest scavengers."

"No," Kenshin had no taste for execution. They might well deserve it, but he was not inclined to decide that fate, nor carry it out, himself. "Is there a constable in Dhannagiri?"

"I won't be hauling the bastards alongside my wagon," the old smith declared, then added. "But I've a notion - -"

To be continued . . .

The Killing Edge-Chapter 1

I'm at about the point in writing this, the sequel to "Shifting the Balance" that I feel comfortable beginning to post the early chapters. There still might be some tweaks that are needed as I get further into it, but those'll be addressed in the finals.

For the time being, I just needed to start getting this out there.

So, chapter 1 of "The Killing Edge"



Chapter 1

1886

Colonial India

An elephant lumbered down the road, urged along by a boy hardly wider than the great beast’s swaying trunk. It pulled in its ambling wake the trunk of a tree, stirring up a cloud of dust and scouring the hard dirt of the road. One made way for it, wary of such massive beasts, even if the sight of them had become commonplace during the last year or more of wondering India.

Bangalore and Goa, Poona and Bombay, they’d walked from the eastern coast to the western and seen jungles lusher than any Japan had to offer. Seen sights that Himura Kenshin had never thought to see, having until little over a year and a half ago, never thought to leave the shores of Japan. He’d never had the inclination. Not like Sano, who had crossed the sea already once, and claimed a great and intimate knowledge of certain parts of China. But India was new to him as well, and he’d gaped no less than Kenshin when they’d seen their first elephant, great leathery skinned beasts as docile as any trained dog, doing the labor of twenty men. He'd stared no less impressed when they’d stood at the foot of the temple in Padmanabha or the ancient shrine to Kali on the outskirts of Hyderabad that had been old before the city itself had been built. It had been a very long time, longer by far than he’d walked the paths of this land, since he had let himself simply revel in the joy of discovery.

Sometimes he even forgot the pain that seemed always to linger at the heart of him, distracted by the wonders of a new world, or by Sano’s easy company. Then the sight of a young child, clutching the hand of its mother, would remind him of what he’d lost and the weight of grief would ease its way back in where it belonged. He hated himself for those moments, where he could live a life free of the guilt of his failure to save them. He wanted that guilt - - he deserved it, no matter what Sano said. And Sano said a great deal, having strong opinions on the subject.

They made their way the best they could. Doing odd jobs when they could in exchange for a meal, day work when it was available in the villages and towns they passed through. Sano gambled when he had a coin or two to spare, and his luck these past months had not been half bad. But games of chance were easier found in the cities. There was little enough to feed a man’s family in the smaller villages to spare for games of chance. But the rains had been plentiful this year and the crops were good, so an odd job here and there was not impossible to find.

And when work could not be found - - well, neither Kenshin nor Sano were unfamiliar with walking a day or two with nothing but water on their bellies. They’d heard rumors the last village they’d passed, of a call for workers to dig an aqueduct on the reserve of the local landlord. Rupee in their pockets for a few honest days work would be a welcome thing.

So they headed that way, to a village that bordered the estate of the Englishman that owned the lands that the people of all the neighboring villages farmed for their livelihoods. A good-sized village, the fields that preceded it thick with sugar cane. A great many low, thatch-roofed houses, a great many people on the streets, going about their daily business. More perhaps than one might expect mid-day in a farming community.

They got a few looks here and there as they passed, the people here well used to Europeans but not so much lighter skinned Asians of Japanese decent. Not many though, people more interested in a gathering towards the center of the town.

“Army,” Sano, who could see over the heads of most of the crowd, said, as they approached the edge of it. A half head shorter Kenshin took his word for it, skirting the edge of the gathering, taking into account more men in the sand colored uniforms of military men about the town now that he sought them out. A regiment’s worth of men, at the very least, mostly Indians with their pointed turbans and their long rifles strapped to their backs with their packs. He saw a glimpse through a gap in the crowd of an English officer, speaking with an Indian elder near what must have been the town’s temple.

“What’s going on?” Sano asked in English, of a bare chested native. Sano’s English was better than Kenshin’s, though Kenshin spoke it tolerably well now.

“Sir Porter has refused to pay for the honest work many men have done on his aqueduct,” the man spat, glancing at Sano. Then looking again, taking them in, their native linins and their foreign features. “When we complained - - he called in the army, accusing us of insurgency. ”

Not an unfamiliar tale. The English who had been granted land rights here by their queen tended towards avarice, taking every advantage over a native people they considered below them. Kenshin had seen it no few times. Had heard the complaints of people taxed into starvation - - people forbidden to grow the harvest of their choice in favor of sowing their fields with crops dictated by their English overseers. And when they complained of it, cried foul and sought to the voices of others in agreement, they were charged with insurgency against the crown and jailed.

“The English Captain,” the man waved a hand towards the officer. “He says that we may not gather to complain. He says that we may take up our grievance with the magistrate. How will we get justice, when Sir Porter serves that post?”

He spat again, and stalked off into the crowd.

“Well, damn,” Sano said. “I guess there’s no work to be had here after all.”

He was as bare-chested at the native man, the day being an oppressively hot one. No one here cared if a man went half naked, the heat lasting year round in this part of the country. Kenshin had his own open down the front, cloak and blanket and what other few supplies he had to his name in a pack he wore over his shoulder. He had no blade. He hadn’t since the first day he’d truly accepted that Kaoru and Kenji were dead. He’d tossed it into the sea - - useless thing that it had been - - unable to save them with it. Sano had called him a fool for it. Accused him of trying to punish himself for something he’d had no control over.

Sometimes he even half believed that. Only sometimes, though.

There was a well at town’s center and water was free. They weeded their way through the disgruntled crowd, past ranks of wary infantry at the edges of it, and towards the central well. A great many women gathered around it, in their plain linen sari’s and scarves, speaking in hushed tones among themselves, casting worried glances at the gathering of angry men.

Kenshin pulled up the bucket and took the empty canteen from his pack to fill with water. Sano had his own and they drank their fill. Sano filled the bucket once more and emptied it over his head, before smiling at a homely young Hindu woman and inquiring.

“Know of any work in town that could get a man a bowl of rice or two?”

The girl hunched her shoulders, embarrassed or shy or simply not used to being spoken to by strange men. But she looked to her friends and after conferring, one of them said. “You might try Daji at the edge of town. Her husband broke his leg last week and there might be work she needs done because of it.”

“He was lazy to begin with,” another woman said. “There will be work aplenty that needs doing, if all you need is a bowl of rice.”

They laughed, amusing themselves in gossip of a neighbor.

Daji did indeed have chores in sore need to doing. Firewood in need of chopping and a hole in the roof in need of thatching. A good afternoon’s work of work for the both of them and likely worth more than a simple meal, but beggars could hardly be choosers. They got rice and flatbread out of it, which they ate out in the yard, away from a complaining, bed-ridden husband and a screaming infant.

“So what do think, do we stay here for the night, or head out?” Sano asked, after they’d plucked the last grain of rice from their bowls and sat in the grass at the side of Daji’s house.

“With the infantry in town, I’d just as well sleep outside of town,” Kenshin admitted.

Sano nodded. “So, we fill our canteens and head out.”

It was a sensible plan. Kenshin had no love for the English and Sano had no love for authority of any sort. Avoiding them both worked best for all concerned. Sano went ahead, while Kenshin returned the bowls and thanked the Goodwife. He was better by far that Sano when it came to the little courtesies, even though the patching of a roof was worth far more than the two bowls of rice that the goodwife had complained was depleting her larder to part with. She kept him a little longer, out in the yard, beyond the hearing of her bed bound husband, and asked what news had come down the road from the towns and villages they had passed.

He passed along what things he thought she might find of interest, and she raised her brow at his accent, and no doubt the shape of his eyes. She leaned in conspiratorially and said. “If you’re Chinese, don’t let the English know. There’s little love lost since the Opium Wars.”

“I’m not,” he assured her.

And she shrugged, doubtful. Almost, one could be offended.

“Just good advice.” She returned to her house, and Kenshin shouldered his pack and headed back towards the center of town and the well where Sano would be waiting - - probably impatient, by now.

He heard the frantic blowing of a whistle before he’d rounded the corner to the village center. Heard the sound of men’s voices raised in alarm. Of cries and the sound of conflict.

He swore, increasing his pace. Surely if there was trouble, Sanosuke would have found his way to the center of it.



Sanosuke Sagara was not by any definition of the word, a ‘do-gooder’. He didn’t go out of his way to right wrongs or see that justice was carried out. He had rather a fondness for certain elements of the underworld, long as too many innocent folk weren’t getting hurt. He and Kenshin had used to differ a lot on that count, Kenshin’s sense of honor a much more defined thing than Sano’s. But of late - - this last year and half since he’d failed to save Kaoru and his and Kaoru’s kid - - well, Kenshin had retreated from the world. Kenshin turned a blind eye to a lot of things, either too wrapped up in his own shell of grief and guilt to notice, or simply too broken to care. It took a damned lot to rile him nowadays. A damn lot to shake him out of the quiet lassitude that he wore like a cloak.

Those first six- - eight months had been the worst. It had been like traveling with a man who’d lost his tongue for all he spoke. Lost most of his mind for all the interest he showed in the world around him. Sano who’d never been known for his patience, figured he ranked right up there with the saints for the tolerance he’d shown dealing with it.

Kenshin was better - - marginally. Sano could occasionally get a smile out of him. Could get him to show interest in some of the places they visited. Still, there was a certain spark missing, like Kaoru dying had ripped something out of him that was hard pressed to regrow.

Or losing Kenji. Kenshin could talk about Kaoru sometimes - - but he couldn’t bring himself yet to speak of the child. He’d go pale and clam up, looking like something noxious and hard had formed in his gut when Sano brought up the boy. Three years old, that’s what Kenji had been when he’d died, and Sano couldn’t quite wrap his mind around having a kid and then loosing it. Maybe Kenshin couldn’t either and that was the problem.

He sure as hell still held on to the guilt of not being able to save them. The guilt of sleeping with Sano while he’d still thought they were alive. He hadn’t slept or done anything else with him since. Sano wasn’t even sure if he masturbated - - like maybe he thought that denying himself honest, physical needs was just rewards. Sometimes the way Kenshin’s mind worked was beyond Sano’s ken. God’s knew Sano didn’t deny himself physical release, even if it was by his own hand. And after the first few months or so, he even stopped going off alone and dealing with it privately so as not to offend Kenshin in his grief. If Kenshin had an issue with Sano lying across from him in his own bedding, dealing with his morning erection - - then Kenshin could damn well get up from where ever they’d bedded down for the night and remove himself to a safe distance.

But Kenshin didn’t complain. Kenshin existed. Kenshin did what needed doing. He walked through this land without really immersing himself in it, a casual wonderer without a destination. And Sano wondered with him, because a half alive Kenshin was better than no Kenshin at all and Sano, despite all his lack of patience, was more than willing to wait for him to heal.

The sun was low now, the shadows lengthening in the streets of this town, the name of which Sano hadn’t bothered to ask. As he neared the well, movement caught his eyes, the shifting of bodies, the thud of fists hitting flesh - - no not fists, wooden batons, as a group of uniformed infantry gathered about the half hidden figure of a man, pummeling him with their clubs.

Wading into conflict with the military was no smart move, the British being damned touchy about challenges to their power, but three guys against one that didn’t even seem to be fighting back just sat wrong with Sano. There was a point where, if a man wanted to call himself a man, he couldn’t just stand back and watch.

“Hey,” he barked, striding that way, catching the arm of one of the soldiers as he drew it back to strike the cowering man.

The others turned on him, Indians no doubt enjoying the power their British masters bestowed upon them. A baton was swung at his head and Sano caught it, the wood slapping against the palm of his hand. He wrenched it out of the man’s grip and flung it away.

“Damnit, you want a fight, I’ll give you a fight - -“ he snarled, even as the third raised a whistle from a cord about his neck and blew into it, a shrill alarm.

He blocked a fist and smashed one of his own into the face of the man who’d swung on him. The man crashed back into the wall of the neighboring building even as the side door opened, spilling forth a whole new pack of dark skinned sepoys, come to see what the ruckus was about. No few of them with the bolt action rifles the infantry carried strapped to their backs, but in the close quarters of an alley there was no room to aim and fire, so at least he had that going for him. He ducked and knocked a guy down with a fist in his throat, took a baton in the side and ignored the pain in the kidney to smash his fist into someone else’s mouth. The villager the original ones had been beating had sunk down to his hands and knees and was trying to crawl away from the melee. There were more men heading this way, more blowing of the damned whistle and cries for order in a distinctly British, British voice. With the arrival of higher authority, what might have been just a brawl turned into what was likely going to be a more complicated situation.

Fine. Just damned fine. Kenshin was going to kill him, if one of these guys didn’t manage it first - - which would be a damned embarrassing way to go, taken out by an accidental hit by a half trained sepoy infantryman.

He let them take hold of him, latching onto his arms, bearing down on him with enough numbers that once they got hold he wasn’t going to easily shake them. But they had stopped trying to bash his skull in with their batons, some semblance of order restored among them now that officers had arrived.

“What’s the meaning of this disturbance?” The officer with the most gleaming metal upon his chest demanded. Sano had no idea what denoted rank among the British military, but this man obviously held a good deal of it, if the infantry sword with the gleaming guard at his hip, the holstered pistol on the other side and the boots that looked as if he’d just come from getting them shined were any indication. Whipcord lean, with a large drooping mustache, the man’s small blue eyes bore into the lot of them.

“This man attacked us,” One of the sepoy cried. There was blood seeping down his nose as evidence.

“You guys were beating an unarmed man. Three against one. I evened the odds,” Sano snapped back, and got a baton slammed into the small of his back for that defense. He grunted, clenching his teeth.

The officer stared down his long nose at him with cold impartiality. “Attacking a soldier in her Majesty’s service is a punishable offense. You’re not Indian.”

The officer strode forward and his men made hasty way for him. He was as tall as Sano, but he didn’t have the breadth of shoulder.

“What makes you think?” Sano ground out.

“Where are your papers? Your passport?”

Gods. They’d run into this issue once, a few months back in Bombay, after the authorities had routed a gaming den that Sano had discovered. They’d managed to escape having to explain the lack of the passports that they probably should have gotten when they’d arrived in the country at the port of Madras.

Past the officer’s shoulder he saw Kenshin in the street between the well and the group of gathered infantry around him. Sano shook his head once, sharply, warning him to keep out of it. The last thing they needed was the both of them in hot water with the powers that be.

“Passport? Didn’t know I needed one, Lieutenant,” Sano said making a guess.

The officer’s mouth tightened under his mustache. “Captain. Captain Robert Worthington. We don’t tolerate disruption of the peace here. We don’t tolerate attacks upon those that serve to keep that peace. You are under arrest for assault at the very least, traveling without proper papers, and possibly the instigation of insurgency - -“

“The hell - -“ Sano cried, as they hauled him past the officer. He caught Kenshin’s eyes in passing. Narrow, annoyed eyes, before Kenshin lowered his head and let his hair and the shadows of evening hide his features.

The constable’s office was a small affair, for a middling sized village that probably did not see a great deal of offenses to jail its citizenry. An office in the front with a surprised looking local constable behind a desk, and a single large cell in the back, with a rough wooden bench along one wall, and a pee pot in the corner.

They hustled him in, the men holding his arms doing their best to try and twist them out of socket. He ground his teeth and made them work at keeping their hold, until they slammed him face first against the bars of the cell and some inventive soul slapped a pair of iron manacles around his wrists and save them the trouble of trying to restrain him. They jerked him around them, hands on his shoulders, dark eyes glaring at him threateningly, while the Captain marched up.

“What’s your name?”

“Kaito,” Sano said meeting the man’s eyes unflinchingly.

The Englishman didn’t seem to like that, the lack of humility in the face of his superiority. He held out a hand and one of his men handed him a baton. Sano turned his head just quick enough to avoid the thing smashing across his nose. He took the blow against the cheek instead and it felt like skin split. He shook his head, little lights dancing around the edges of his vision.

“Have you any connection with the attacks on British personal and the robberies along the Guroda peninsula?”

“The what? No. I’m traveling from the west coast - - just looking for work.”

“There’s little enough work here for the locals. Where are your papers?”

“Yeah, well. I know that now and I don’t have any.”

“Are you connected with the insurgents in Guroda province, attempting to stir rebellion amongst the people?”

“I told you - - no! I’m just passing through. I did what any man with a shred of honor would have when he comes upon three thugs beating the shit out of an unarmed man. I didn’t know they were your thugs, or I’d have passed by.”

He got hit again for that, the baton jamming into his gut, then his jaw. He gasped, spitting out blood. The bastard had a talent with the club.

Captain Worthington leaned forward, small eyes narrowed, a vein throbbing rhythmically in his temple. “It been tasked to me to track down and eradicate the miscreants responsible for stirring violence against the crown. I take my task very seriously and I assure you there will be no leniency for those that stir rebellion. No leniency.”

He handed the baton back to his subordinate, gave the man a nod, then spun on his heel and stalked for the door.

The remaining Indians turned back to Sano with dark, speculative eyes, and he figured it was going to be long night, if they’d been given leave to continue with his questioning.



Kenshin followed Sano to the constable’s office, keeping to the shadows of the opposite street. Easy enough to go unnoticed, with some people still out after dusk, himself dressed the part in long native trousers and lose linen shirt. In the purple light of evening, his hair might have been the only give away, if someone across a street happened to be looking for abnormalities. Long again, the tips of it trailing the small of his back, auburn streaked with highlights of reddish gold from months of walking under the hot Indian sun. A vanity perhaps, not to cut it, but Sano claimed a fondness for it and the tail of hair at his back held a deeper meaning - - more than vanity - - a badge of what he was again - - a man without a master or a home. A rurouni without a sword.

He stood in the lee between two buildings across the street from the jail, taking in the lay of the building, squat and sturdy with a wood roof instead of thatch, and barred windows on the ground level. There was another window, higher up, for aeration that lacked armament. Easy enough to get to from the rooftops of the neighboring buildings, if one had a dire need.

A group of the native sepoy guard loitered outside the constabulary, turban wrapped helmets close together as they conferred. Eventually the British officer stalked out and they fell into place behind him, save for two that stood on guard outside the door. They headed down the street towards what might have been the village inn and those few people that had paused in their evening activities to watch the passage, returned to their work.

A man hesitantly edged towards him. Bare headed, bare chested, with the short, bunched pants that a good deal of native men wore, baring knobbing legs and dirty bare feet. There was blood on his chin, and a swollen, split lip. Kenshin looked at him quietly, suspecting the man had a purpose and waiting to see if he carried it out.

Finally, the man said. “You were with him? The man they took away?”

The man was scared and nervous, but there seemed little of ill intent about him. Kenshin nodded.

“He - - he saved me from a worse beating than I received - - and I fled. It should have been me they jailed. I’m sorry.”

“What did you do?” Kenshin asked softly. “To deserve this beating?”

The man looked nervously about, then beckoned Kenshin to follow him down the alley to the relative quiet of the next street. There were only small houses here, with small yards that housed the occasional goat or chicken drowsing in the falling darkness.

“I did not do what they accused me of,” the man said vehemently. “I swear that. I only complained that they were the dogs of the English to support Sir Porter’s thievery against us and they accused me of sedition. I’ve wife and four girls and I thought of them and I ran. It was cowardice.”

Kenshin shook his head. “No. The odds were against you and they have need of you more than he did. I don’t fault you for running when you did. They are easy to accuse of sedition though, when a man simply speaks his mind or defends himself. Is there truth to their fears?”

The man moved towards a hovel, a hut with a rickety fence protecting a thin garden. The curtain moved and Kenshin caught a glimpse of a woman’s face peering out, before she retreated.

“There are rumors of a supply train attacked north of here, of British soldiers killed and goods stolen. And another of a platoon ambushed on the road to Dagaralore and killed to a man. They fear another rebellion and they seek to slice it off at the roots before it comes to be. The men here, they are only part of a larger regiment that camps on the grounds of Sir Porter’s estate. They say an English General of some repute leads them.”

“What will they do, to a man accused of sedition?” Kenshin asked.

The villager shivered, casting a glance back at his hut, and said in hushed tones. “I spoke to a traveler who saw four men shot on the road, killed by soldiers under the command of the British and left to rot. The British believed them scouts for bandits on the road, but the man I spoke with claimed that they simply refused to give way - - and were belligerent about it - - when the troop commanded they clear the road for their passage. I’ve heard of men hanged for speaking in public of British injustices. They cling to their laws and their magistrates when it benefits them, but punishment is swift when it is the common man they find offense with. My prayers are with your friend.”

Kenshin took his leave, leaving the man to return to his hovel and his family. If nothing else, Sano had saved a woman and her daughters of the loss of a husband. But he had wondered into troubles that went deeper than casual street brawls.

Kenshin was no stranger to fast, brutal elimination of potential threats. It had been the way of the world in Japan before the Meiji era with its manta of tolerance and peace. Offense had not been a thing lightly taken by men of the sword. There were samurai he had heard tell of, that would take a man’s head for failing to bow the proper degree in passing, much less what they might do to a man that spoke out against their lord. Brutal men granted the power of life and death by the shoguns they had served. They were what they were, and he had taken no few of their lives during the war that had changed Japan for the better.

But these British, in their quest for colonies and their thirst for riches and power, rode rough shod over people they claimed would fall into decline without the benefit of their wise rule. They crowed to all the world of their superiority and the enlightenment of their civilization and yet they killed men on the road for daring offense as easily as the most brutal of samurai’s in days gone by might kill a peasant for daring to disrespect him.

He did not wish to trust Sano’s life to their mercy. It would make their lives difficult, breaking and running from this trouble, but better than sitting idly while the blade came down upon their necks. It was a big land - - a massive land compared to Japan - - and there were places aplenty that a pair of travelers might hide, living off the land itself, until furor over the loss of one man caught brawling in the street died down.

He waited until well into night, when the village was quiet and still and the darkness peaked. The sepoy guards had left some while back, along with their fellows that had lingered in the constable’s office. He thought there was one village official still within the office, left to watch the prisoner, but knowing village officials of any nationality, he was likely bedded down for the night himself.

It was a simple matter of scaling the trellis at the back of the neighboring building, and making the short jump from one rooftop to the next. The shutters on the small window at the apex of the roof were open, allowing night breezes to cool the interior. He slid through, crouched on a rafter and took account of the room.

Sure enough the village constable was asleep, sprawled on a narrow cot in the front of the room. The cell in the back was dark and quiet. He lowered himself to the floor, landing without a sound. There was a ring of keys on the desk, a small stroke of luck.

“Sano?” He whispered it, standing at the cell door, sorting through the keys for the one that might fit the lock.

There was movement against the wall at the back corner of the cell, a grunt as a body pushed itself up with effort. Even in the darkness, the bruises on Sano’s face were evident. Kenshin’s fingers froze on the keys, staring in dismay that began edging into anger as Sano reached a hand to lean on the bars, giving him a lopsided, swollen attempt at a grin. An eye swollen shut, a gash with the beginnings of nasty bruise on his cheek, more bruising on his face and who knew what on his body from the careful way he held himself. More damage by far than he’d had when they’d hustled him into this building. Which meant they’d been at him after, in this cell, where his options had been limited.

“S’okay,” Sano whispered, flicking his one good eye down at the keys in Kenshin’s hands. “Maybe open the cell before he wakes up, huh?”

Kenshin clenched his jaw, biting back the questions that wanted out. He found a likely key and fit it into the lock. The door swung open, creaking on its hinges, but the sleeping official didn’t stir. Sano made a motion for Kenshin to wait, and went for his pack, with its belongings scattered on a table against the wall. He stuffed his things back in and limped to the door where Kenshin had already lifted the bar that barricaded it against trespass during the night.

“Before you say it,” Sano said, as they edged down the side of the street, keeping well to the shadows. “This wasn’t my fault.”

“I know. It doesn’t mean you aren’t a fool.” Kenshin paused, a good distance down the street from the jail, and took closer account of Sano’s injuries. In the moonlight, the bruises were dark patches on his skin. Kenshin laid fingertips to an irregular patch of discoloration above his rips and Sano sucked in a breath.

“How bad?”

“Had worse, given to me by better. If they hadn’t of cuffed my hands, I’d have knocked all their heads together.”

Kenshin narrowed his eyes, angrier than he’d been in a very long time.

“It’s not like - -“ Sano started to say, then broke off, gaze shifting behind Kenshin in surprise. And Kenshin, who had been very focused upon Sano, cursed himself for a fool for not realizing the approach of another man in the darkness.

He realized it now, without even turning. The prickling of the hair along his arms, the feel of cold steel at the back of his neck.

“I was told there were two of you.” The stilted British accent that belonged to an Englishman and not an Indian. The smell of boot polish and some pungent cologne.

“Turn around, slowly.”

Kenshin did as he was directed, the tip of the blade never wavering from his skin. Cold metal of a straight infantry sword of the sort the British preferred, with a short grip and an ornate guard. Kenshin’s eyes drifted up the blade to the man holding it. Sano’s height, skin weathered by years under the Indian sun. Without his helmet there was a lighter band around his forehead where the tan ended.

“Are you Chinese spies sent here to stir trouble?”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Sano said. “Do we look Chinese? Are you Europeans that blind that you can’t tell the difference?”

Kenshin wished very much that Sano would keep his mouth shut.

“You’re an insolent bastard. Escape from custody, assault, espionage - - your list of offenses is growing.”

“All of them punishable by a beating then a shooting, right?” Sano said. “Because you English are so stuck up on following the letter of your law.”

“Shut up, Sano,” Kenshin suggested softly.

The officer’s eyes flicked to him and he moved. Just slid around the side of the sword, putting his back to the blade, catching the man’s wrist above the guard and forcing the tip of the blade down into the dirt. Continued the turn and slammed the heel of his hand against the side of the Englishman’s temple. The man went down, a sprawl of long limbs, the gun, which would have been a better weapon to point at Kenshin, still snug in its holster.

“Sure. That’s another way to go,” Sano said, bending to grasp the man’s ankles and help drag him deeper into the shadows of the alley away from easy discovery. “Granted, if he was pissed before - -“

“Shut up,” Kenshin repeated his earlier suggestion and Sano snorted.

It had been a rash move, but Kenshin had found, since Winter had destroyed the life he’d had, that smug Englishmen stretched his tolerances to their limits. And this one had been responsible for Sano being in the shape he was in. Either from his direct order or his lack of control over the men under his command. Either way, he was responsible and the least he deserved was a sore head and bit of embarrassment. They’d pay for it though, in no few sleepless nights with likely pursuit on their heels until they cleared this province.

To be continued . . .