Shadow of The Fox (Shadow of the Fox #1) - Julie Kagawa Page 0,76
abruptly came to mind: the two of them, together, alone and drunk on sake.
Setting my jaw, I pushed myself off the railing to walk back into the hut.
There was a shimmer in the corner of my eye, and a small white ball rolled toward me down the veranda.
I didn’t step back, though my hand dropped to the hilt of my sword. We weren’t alone. Perhaps the hut was home to a yurei or other restless ghost, though how the bandits had stayed here for so long without encountering the spirit, I wasn’t sure. The ball rolled silently across the wooden boards until it veered away and dropped off the edge. Bouncing once, it continued to glide across the yard until it hit the edge of the woodpile.
A child stepped from behind the logs, picked up the ball and smiled at me. A boy of five or six, wearing a black robe with sleeves that were too big, wooden geta clogs and a tattered straw hat. His head was shaved, only a tuft of dark hair clinging to his forehead, and beneath that, a single enormous eye, dominating the top half of his face, stared at me across the yard.
Hakaimono stirred. Not a child. Not even human. A yokai, but one that wasn’t particularly threatening. I sensed the demon’s disappointment; if the yokai wasn’t menacing, there was no reason to fight. But at the same time, I couldn’t ignore a strange yokai that had appeared out of nowhere. Especially when, sitting on a stump at the edge of the woodpile, it was obviously waiting for me.
“K-konbanwa, Kage-san,” the yokai greeted, and bowed as I approached. That single bright eye continued to watch me from beneath the brim of his hat. “Isn’t it a nice evening?”
“Who are you?”
The one-eyed boy cringed at my flat tone. Leaning back, he reached into his robe and drew out a small lacquered box. Pulling off the lid revealed a white, squarish lump of tofu resting inside, and he held the box to me in both claws. “A gift,” he announced with another bow. “Or a peace offering. To show I mean no harm. I am an insignificant nothing, an unimportant speck, not worth the great Kage demonslayer’s time. So please do not have Kamigoroshi cut off my head.”
Hakaimono scoffed in wordless disgust; apparently it did not believe this yokai to be worth killing. “If you truly mean no harm, you have nothing to fear from me,” I told the creature, ignoring the offered tofu. “But you waited until I was alone to show yourself, so I assume you’re here for a reason. What do you want?”
“Kage-san is truly merciful.” The yokai sat up, and a fat red tongue slithered between his lips, curled around the tofu and slurped it into his mouth. Wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he regarded me with that single huge eye that didn’t hold an ounce of childlike innocence.
“My master sent me here with a message for the great Kage demonslayer,” the yokai stated. “He knows what it is you seek, and he warns that Kage-san should be careful, for there are others searching for it, as well. Thieves, mystics and daimyo alike—many have heard the legend of the Dragon’s prayer and are scouring the land for the pieces of the scroll.”
The Dragon’s prayer? Was that what Lady Hanshou had sent me for? I knew the scroll had to be important; if the daimyo of the Shadow Clan had sent me to retrieve it, then she was expecting trouble of the supernatural variety. Running into a horde of amanjaku near the temple had confirmed that suspicion, but that didn’t tell me anything about the scroll itself. Dragon’s prayer, I thought. An ancient relic of immense power? A priceless scripture lost to the ages? I wondered what it really was, and why someone had sent a horde of lesser demons—and according to Yumeko, an oni, the most powerful of Jigoku’s terrors—to acquire it.
Though it wasn’t my place to wonder. My mission was to retrieve the scroll, no matter what it was, no matter who was searching for it.
“Heed my master’s warning, Kage-san,” the yokai went on, becoming somber. “Most mortals searching for the Dragon’s prayer don’t know enough to pose a threat. They have heard a bit of the legend, perhaps enough to try to gather the pieces of the scroll, but their knowledge is incomplete. They flail blindly in the dark, ignorant and unaware. But there is one that even the