As her mother grasped her by the forearm, Sakura told her father to be careful. The old samurai took up his spear and began to hike up the hill.

The very idea of watching the prisoners terrified Sakura. The knuckles on her left hand were white, the grip of the bladed haft there sweaty and unsatisfactory.

“You’re positively shaking, child.”

Sakura disentangled herself from her mother and turned toward the voice. It was Dija, that cat eye handmaid.

“Here,” she said. “Give me the yari.” She put out a pawed hand, gesturing for Sakura to give her the weapon.

He told me to watch them, she thought, not relinquishing the spear.

“I don’t need that edge,” Dija said, a fierce look coming to her eyes. “But you’re useless with that thing.”

Sakura suddenly noticed the claws protruding from Dija’s fingertips. They were long, curved and looked quite deadly. The dancer knew the cat eye was telling the truth. She pushed the spear into Dija’s hand. The maid took the weapon and passed it over to Sakura’s mother. Yukio’s eyes bulged and she cocked her head back, but she took the weapon, though as if Dija were handing her a spider.

“I feel useless,” she said.

“Do you not possess healing magic?”

Sakura flinched. “How do you know that?”

“I’m a cat eye,” Dija said curtly. “An old cat eye. I can smell it on you.”

“Oh…”

“Don’t worry. Your time will come, I’m sure of that.”

With that, Dija looked up the hill where Hitomo had been hiking. Sakura followed the other woman’s gaze, but her father had disappeared. Would one man make any difference if Lawrence and Tomii were in trouble?

She didn’t think so.

Nevertheless, they were in danger here, so she got up suddenly. “Everyone!” she called. Dija seemed surprised at her as she swept about in a carrying voice. “We need to stay together. The enemy is just over that hill. We need to flee.”

People in the group began to cast worried eyes about, some of the women grasping their children more tightly.

“Do as she says,” Hiun said from beside a tree. His voice hardly carried far enough for anyone to hear.

“There you are,” Sakura accused. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Have you? I’ve been… here.”

The dancer nearly rolled her eyes, but she was distracted. “Is that so?” People were getting up and making their way back down the foothills, their steps hurried.

“Do not panic!” She watched as a couple of their members broke off in a different direction entirely. “Stay together!”

She was going to go after them when Hiun moved forward, jerkiness in his step. “Let them be,” he said. “They… must choose their own path.”

“They could be killed.”

“That may be.”

Sakura made a noise of exasperation.

“My lady?” Dija asked, her attention moving away from Sakura and the oni mage.

The princess was coming forward. She was with Mika. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Why is everyone going the other way?”

“There’s heavy fighting on the hilltop,” Dija said before Sakura could get a word in. “Can’t you hear it?”

She simply nodded when the princess glanced toward her for a second explanation. Suddenly a deep pang of fear tore at Sakura. She almost sobbed then and there. She felt dizzy, her throat beginning to feel ticklish and tight.

She swallowed, warding the emotions away. Everything will be fine.

Hiun cried out suddenly. The princess yelped and Mika grabbed her by the arm as Sakura whirled toward the mage. He was lying on the ground, a bloody gash in his forehead. Sakura’s eyes jerked wide. She ran to him, her knees skidding into the grass beside his fallen form. “Hiun? Hiun?!”

“Do not go to him!” a voice commanded.

Sakura froze. Turned to meet that voice. It was the huskiest, most carrying command she had ever heard. It almost sounded like it came from more than one place.

What she saw was…

“What in the name of the gods is that?” Mika asked from behind her covered mouth.

Just what I want to know, Sakura thought.

Dija spoke. Her tone was flat. “A hurg.”

“Hurg?” Sakura asked. She had heard of them before, but never saw one before.

Was there not supposed to be an ambassador from Hurgora at the palace last night? She had only seen what they looked like in oil paintings. It was different seeing one in the flesh. It was… she felt threatened, the emotion heightening when she realized Dija’s fingers were curled, her claws protruding even farther than Sakura had seen them a few moments before.

“Why is he not throwing more stones?”

“Because there’s nothing we can do, fool girl!”

The hurg, tall, thick-necked, so thick-necked in fact that it hardly had a neck, came close enough to speak with them. His yellow eyes roved about them. “Listen to the cat eye. I have no need to kill anyone else right now.”

He’s not dead, Sakura thought. She could feel the life inside of Hiun. Best to let this hurg think he’s dead…

“What do you want?” Sakura asked. “Why did you assault us?”

The hurg said nothing, only walked toward Princess Noriko, his booted footfalls implacable and inexorable to their hostile stances.

Mika rushed to bar his way from the princess where Dija already stood protectively.

This hurg was well dressed, wearing a high-cost cut of leather breaches, a green brocaded doublet with gold buttons and leather gloves tanned black and polished to a high sheen like his boots. He didn’t so much as pause in reaction to the hostile movements of the two maids, both showing signs of martial arts training.

“Princess,” Dija said, her voice low and brooking no argument. “Run.”

“Run?!” a new voice—incredulous and mocking—asked from behind them.

Sakura glanced over her shoulder. There was a small woman there, a curled whip in one hand, her attire a close fitting bodysuit, the sheen making it evident that she wore silk with a heavy half skirt adorning her ample hips.

“Oh, I don’t think so!” the little woman continued in a thick local accent of the region. She giggled before lashing her whip with a crack. The tail end wrapped around Dija’s wrist and the cat eye hissed viciously. Without fretting, she yanked for leverage against the attack.

Sakura’s heart nearly leapt out of her chest as she jumped back. She landed in the grass on her rump. Mika unsheathed a small dagger as Princess Noriko yelped, covering her face with her hands.

Dija continued her contest of strength with their new attacker, causing the woman at the other end of that whip to grit her teeth and pull back. “Yield to me, she cat!”

“Come closer, little girl,” Dija growled, “so I can scratch your pretty face!”

“Enough!” the Hurg said, voice booming. When Mika attempted to strike him, he simply knocked her aside like a bundle of wheat. She grunted and fell into the grass as the hurg bent forward and scooped the princess up over his shoulder.

“Stop! Let me go! Dija! DIJA!”

“Silence,” the hurg commanded. “Yuko, we have what we came for. Let us depart.”

Sakura was still on the ground. She hadn’t bothered to get up because there was nothing she could do against either of their foes.

The woman called Yuko sniffed at the command given her as she yanked harder on the whip, but when Dija began to pull her from her spot between the trees, growling and uttering curses along with all the ways she would inflict pain on the woman, but Yuko finally desisted, slackened her whip and pulled the weapon free.

She backed away into the trees, coiling the long sinuous weapon as Dija ran for the hurg. She moved fast, evidentially intending to sink her deadly, fully distended claws into him, but he sidestepped, turned halfway and punched her in the face.

Everything shook. Sakura felt dizzy.

The maid yowled as she landed on her back, furred hands reddening from the wound she had just sustained.

Sakura, now safe from their fleeing attackers, scrabbled back to the oni and bent over Hiun. She assessed the damage he had taken, her hands shaking like leaves in the wind. She realized that he was awake, his eyes blinking.

“Umm…”He head wasn’t working. Hiun seemed dazed.

“I… believe I was attacked…?”

“You were,” Sakura said, noticing the drops hitting his cheek. When had she started crying? “Just stay still.”

After assessing the damage, which wasn’t as much as she had initially thought it would be, she invoked her healing magic, infused it into the oni with both of her hands on his neck.

The gash on his forehead knitted, the blood their scabbing. Hiun breathed in sharply, feeling the sting of the sudden grown of knitting flesh.

“I feel… energized,” he said.

That was good. Sakura took her hands from his neck. “That’s because I gave you some of my energies.”

“Oh.”

She leant back as he sat up and nearly blacked out.

“Are you… well, little mage?”

Sakura rubbed her temple, nodding through the dizziness. Her vision came to.

“They… took her,” Mika said. “We have to do something!” She was still nursing her side.

Sakura was going to go to her, but Dija needed her more. She got up with Hiun’s help and moved to the cat eye’s side. The maid stood still, eyes glazed. Her mouth and surrounding fur was bloodied, and in her right hand between thumb and forefinger was a large curved tooth.

“Dija!” Mika exclaimed. “We have to do something.”

“There is nothing we can do, child. Can’t you see that?”

Sakura took the tooth from the cat eye, garnering her attention. “I can heal you.” The cat eye grunted, seemingly unconcerned. Sakura bent forward, the tooth in her hand. “Open your mouth.”

Dija growled stubbornly.

“Just do it, Dija,” Mika ordered.

Dija obeyed, sullenly and Sakura stuck the tooth, root first back into the gaping wound in the cat eyes gums. She squirmed a bit, but otherwise took the pain quite well.

Sakura didn’t have to invoke very much energy, just enough to feel that she was being drained before she stopped.

Dija put her bloodied paw up to her face, massaged her tooth through her closed mouth. “It is better. Thank you.”

Sakura nodded, her heart still pounding inside her chest. “It’ll be loose for a time, but it should heal all right.” She felt so exhausted, she just wanted to sleep now, but the day wasn’t even close to being done. Something cold touched her back.

“It’s raining,” Dija said, a sour look crossing her already sour expression.

Sakura looked about for the group. Everyone was gone. She jumped when she saw the armored men coming down the hill, swords unsheathed.

“Run!” she screamed, pointing at them.