Nine Heroes For Free!

Yes, these are my swords.
No, you cannot touch them.A long, long time ago, easily more than twenty-five years back (which is ancient according to my sons), I wrote a short story— Through the Sting of Fairy Smoke .  It was simple, straight-forward, based on a thumbnail understanding of samurai and medieval Japan, and riffing on a few themes of interest.  More importantly, the story was one of my first where a strong, female character kicked ass and took names.  Josai wasn’t the mai...