ZISATSUN SIGHED AS gently as a lover. The day ran thin, and the sun sank below the blue giants that knelt deep in the west. The Old Fathers, they were called, for long had they watched over the Hinoni. They had unsettled Imitsu-tan since he was a boy, for they looked like balled fists rising to knuckled peaks. The priests taught that the peaks were so high that no man alive could climb to those highest ices. And yet, there were stories of gleaming white towers near the tops that stretched towards the sun itself. Beyond that shield wall of mountain slopes lay wonders and horrors alike, if the priests spoke true: glorious cities from before the age of man, abandoned amidst the calamities of the Starless Age, where hoards of treasure lay heaped for the taking… And the black fortresses of the Enemy, where it was said that wraiths still prowled, plying vile sorceries at the whim of their long-dead master.

It was those shadows Imitsu-tan had tasted, not the treasure. At the head of summer, he had ridden with an escort of thirty men to the westernmost town of Lord Kiratsu’s domain, to a place called Iuhina-to-Mun, the Gate of the Sunset. There, Imitsu-tan established a bulwark of retainer ronijar to keep the roads clear of vagrants, bandits, and the like. Lord Kiratsu would not tolerate the fouling of his fields with beggars or thieves. Their orders were simple: turn aside those who came out of the west—or string them from the trees.

The old man’s law was cruel, yes, but these times were lean enough to make a wolf gnaw his own leg. Worse yet, when Imitsu had knelt across the table from the headman of Iuhina-to-Mun, the balding man spilled a number of rumors of demons and horrors seen by those who passed through the village. If even a fraction could be believed, the days would grow dark indeed.

Imitsu-tan had left a parting order with the ronijar: silence those stories. Fear would do the people no good, and the Hangman would not allow his folk to flee as the other governors had done, no matter what came down from the western peaks.

And it was fear Imitsu-tan felt now, though he did not admit it. Not before the o-shinikenjar, or the giant who drifted behind him with those watchful gray eyes. Imitsu-tan did not like the look of that one… but there was something about him. The giant sat opposite the morijar now, sharpening his heavy blade with long, confident strokes of his whetstone.

The scraping was steady, unhurried. Almost meditative. A mistake might have cost the man his finger, yet the gray-eyed brute did not even look at the sword. He stared at Imitsu-tan, or the priest Nihimon, who sat beside the morijar taking swigs from one of the gourds of wine slung about his neck.

Around them, the Hangman’s Wood grew dark. Only the little fire the priest had set would keep the shadows away. Every so often, the fat man tossed a sprig of prayer herbs on the fire or muttered a chanting prayer. He said it would keep the ghosts away, and Imitsu-tan believed it. The burning herbs rankled his nose. The priest’s presence was worse than the herbs, though. Not for the first time since leaving the castle did Imitsu-tan wonder why the old lord had ordered Brother Nihimon along with them. What use was he, really?

They had left without any delay from Castle Kanashim. Though he felt a fool now, Imitsu-tan had expected to delay until morning. And the priest, perhaps longer. But Kinro and Ulrem saw no point in lingering. They were well used to the road. Though both men owned horses, they did not fetch them the stable at the edge of town. There would be no need; the forest floor was too choked and unpredictable for a horse. Where they would going, they must walk like wolves.

They waited only so long as the morijar and priest required, and not a moment longer. In his scramble to find and question the scout as to the exact location of his meeting with the Black Foot, Imitsu-tan had not had a chance to speak with Lady Kanashim. He regretted that sorely now but pushed the thought away.

Imitsu-tan had trailed the fighters down towards the wood with a growing pit in his gut. Zisatsun waited in silence, the dark pines swaying in the hot summer breeze. Dark forms swung from branches at the edge of the forest, unremarked on as the men passed beneath. Nor had they answered the hailing of the feasting crows.

They wound through the overgrown, gnarled forest for several hours, following a trail only the big outlander seemed to see. When Imitsu-tan offered to tell what the scout had shared, the outlander had grinned fiercely and walked away. He strode at the front of their column, the big sword on his back swaying. Somehow, he was leading them steadily in the right direction, as if the path were clear as day to him. Ulrem did not speak, and at times seemed nearly to vanish into the trees around them, like a panther into shadows.

Only when the setting sun choked off their light did he at last call a quit to the hard march. Brother Nihimon was gasping by then, and even Imitsu-tan, who was no simpering court sword, felt the aching fire in his limbs.

Never before had he lingered in Zisatsun after dark. But what choice had he? Young Hokon was somewhere out there in the trees.

Was the boy in pain? Was he afraid? Did he cry for his father and mother? Or had he found courage, and waited in silence for Imitsu-tan to come for him? Did he hold back the fear, knowing it was only a matter of time before he was free?

Such unwelcome thoughts came with unwanted emotion. A surge of fear boiled up in the morijar, not of the ghosts or trees, but for the boy. He turned his face away from the pale flames. The scraping stopped.

“You are hiding something,” growled the outlander. “I don’t like walking into a fight with half the story.” His words were simple, childish, but his eyes saw much. Too much.

“This wood is haunted,” hissed Imitsu-tan. “I fear for my soul.”

“It’s true,” the priest said. His drunken eyes goggled around at the shadows of branch and bough. Spittle dribbled from one fat, quivering lip. “Long have I felt the forest watching me. Calling me, even from Kanashim. But the Lord has never let me leave, and the trees…” He shuddered.

The outlander laughed. The scorn was sharp and cut as deep as his blade might. Imitsu-tan felt the prickle of anger at being mocked.

“You jump at shadows.” He leaned forward, his face a firelit leer. A dangerous light gleamed in his eyes, threatening wildfire. “I say we move on. What need have we to camp tonight, except to lose hours?” There was no fear in his blunt, ugly features. “Find the boy sooner, I say. Let us test ourselves against this Black Foot gang.”

The priest jumped at that idea. “Leave the fire? Are you mad?”

“Some have said so.” Ulrem tested his finger on the blade, stuck a lip out, and sheathed it. Then he tugged a dagger from his belt, and a long knife from his boot. Imitsu-tan watched the man produce several smaller blades from elsewhere on his person, too. Soon, a pile of them lay before the big man, who took to testing and sharpening those he found wanting.

“I think they are right, Lion.” Kinro appeared from the darkness between the trees. He had both swords tucked into his belt, the tattered old one, and the precious gift given by the lord of Kanashim. Imitsu-tan frowned to see Silver River hanging there. The o-shinikenjar’s voice was quiet, reserved. “The wind here is sour. Wrong. The trees are angered by something.”

Ulrem cast him a wary glance. “You too?”

“Have we not seen stranger things? What do your ears tell you? Not a lone nightbird sings. Not even the bats hunt tonight.”

The big man grunted and began to tuck away his knives.

The boughs of tall pines shifted around them. Between the trunks, the darkness was nearly complete. Only in the dungeons below Kanashim had Imitsu-tan seen a deeper black. He pitied the fools who languished there for weeks or months. The strongest were always broken hardest by that remorseless dark.

And yet, if he failed…

The priest took a long pull from his gourd. “Lord Kiratsu sent me here to die,” he said miserably. Ulrem and Kinro shared a look.

“We saw the women hanging near the border of the trees,” said Kinro. His face was grim, his disapproval clear.

“Thieves,” slurred Nihimon. “Sisters. One was barren, the other turned out nothing but twisted horrors. Some said their blood was cursed. How should I know? My prayers have long gone unanswered. The winds don’t speak to me anymore.”

“Then why are you here?” cut in Ulrem. At the same time, Kinro asked, “Why were they hanged?”

“I told you. He sent me along with you for one reason only.” To Kinro, he said, “Those bitches stole another woman’s child. When the lord’s ronijar went to retrieve it… the child was dead.” Brother Nihimon made a sloppy warding gesture. He blinked and tossed a sprig of something on the fire.

“May their souls find peace, though I doubt it.” Imitsu-tan glared at him. The drink had loosened the fat priest’s tongue too much.

Kinro settled in beside the fire. “Tell us of these ghosts.”

Nihimon laughed and wiped his face with a clumsy hand. “Tell you? And draw their ire? I’m here to keep them away, remember? That’s what I’m good for.”

Imitsu-tan’s anger boiled over in a flash. He seized the fat man by the collar of his orange robe and shook him until the beads and gourds he wore clattered and the priest’s teeth rattled. “Tell them! Or I’ll send you out into the dark tonight! I would have rather left you behind, you old drunk.”

Nihimon shrieked and covered his face. His gourd fell to the ground and belched wine onto the needle-strewn forest floor. The morijar gave him another jerk for good measure, and let him go.

The priest recovered his wine, but not his calm. Shuddering, he said, “You shouldn’t touch me.”

Imitsu-tan growled at him. “Then do as you’re told, worm.”

Sighing, the priest said, “These are the Hangman’s Woods. All the forest is a gallows for the lord of Kanashim. And his father before him, and so on. The very earth is glutted on the bones of those damned by their word.” The fat priest peered suspiciously at the trees around them. “But those are not the ghosts I fear.”

Kinro sat beside Ulrem. His eyes shone in the firelight, and Imitsu-tan could feel the man’s focus close on the priest, examining every word.

Beside him, the big outlander seemed bored, his eyes wandering over the dark trees. But there was purpose to it, the morijar saw. Ulrem was equally focused, but perfectly at ease. The forest weighed not on his soul, and the man seemed so completely in his element that he might have been a statue left here from some elder day. Yet, the power in his long limbs was clear. At a moment’s notice, the big man might surge to battle, bringing all the fury of a lion to bear. That was the mark of a true warrior, the morijar knew, and he was suddenly glad he had not crossed blades with this stranger on the temple steps outside the town.

Perhaps… Imitsu-tan bit the side of his finger, considering his words.

The priest kept talking, though he did not look at his companions. He stared into the fire, and as he spoke his face grew more and more twisted. What he saw in those flames, Imitsu-tan could only guess.

“When I was a young man, and Lord Kiratsu freshly named governor of Kanashim Castle by the emperor, there was a famine.” Nihimon sighed, shaking his head. “The spring was hot, and the rivers ran dry. The fields bore nothing but dust, and the people were hungry. Frightened.” He paused to take another drink. His hands were shaking. “A gang of young men—boys, really—decided the famine was a sign that Lord Kiratsu was unworthy. They traveled town to town, sharing their complaint. Eventually, they came to me, demanding I support their cause.”

“What did they want?” rumbled the outlander.

“To eat,” the priest cried. “They blamed Lord Kiratsu for keeping their bellies empty. Babies were starving. Disease broke out in the eastern quarter, and vermin followed, eating what little of their stores remained.”

“Did Kiratsu go hungry?”

“No.”

“Fools,” snapped Imitsu-tan. “My father told me this story. Rebels and thieves. They did not know their place!”

The priest blinked at him. “Well. I refused. Their rebellion ended…badly. For their treason, Lord Kiratsu hanged them here in Zisatsun.”

A long silence stretched, punctuated only by the crackling of the flame chewing the heaped logs.

“How many?” asked Kinro.

The priest hung his head. “A hundred. A hundred boys.” The big man narrowed his eyes at Nihimon but said nothing.

“Their ghosts walk the forest now,” Imitsu-tan said. He suppressed a shudder. Tales from his childhood suddenly seemed too close, too true.

“They claim the dead as their own.” Hokon was out here, he reminded himself. Had the boy seen ghosts crawling though the shadows?

“A bad thing,” Ulrem said at last.

“That’s how I know,” Nihimon said. His words were blurry from drink. “I know it. He sent me here to die after all these years.” This time he took a pull so long it emptied the gourd. He tossed it aside and put his head between his knees, taking heaving breaths.

Kinro digested this, rubbing his jaw thoughtfully, but Ulrem stood. The firelight caught the golden ring on his forefinger, drawing Imitsu-tan’s eye. Strange designs wove within the glimmering metal that avoided his gaze. His eye ran over them like oil over water.

Suddenly, the morijar caught a new vision of this foreigner: one of pride, and power scarcely contained. His black hair fell like a lion’s mane around his bluff, battered face. The dark mustache lent him a gravity and severity not cruel in nature, but implacable. He had the look of a wild chieftain, somehow, of an echo only Imitsu-tan’s heart could name.

Ulrem’s gray eyes briefly met the morijar’s, and then rove away again, like wolves stalking their range.

“I will stand first watch,” the outlander said, his voice deep and certain. “Perhaps I will spy one of these hundred souls.” Then, without another word, he strode off into the shadows.

“Fool,” the priest murmured. “Only a fool goes into Zisatsun alone.”

Kinro, who had seemed lost in thought, said, “He’s not alone.”