We’d been waiting three days when the riders finally arrived.

One of the scouts whom I’d sent out to guard the perimeter of our camp came in at a run with the news. When he was through the stockade gate, he jogged across to where I was sitting, on a sawn log by the big central fire. In the ruddy light of the blaze, his eyes were wide as he looked up at me and delivered his news.

“Riders, sir,” he gasped. “Twenty of them, coming from the direction of Saxehold.”

“Well done, lad,” I told him, “go to your post now. I’ll see to the rest.”

My axe was leaning against the bench at my side, and I swung it up onto my shoulder as I headed toward the gate, with the rest of my warband behind me. Twenty seasoned warriors, lifted shields and axes, and checked the gleaming buckles and leather straps on their iron armor. These riders were expected; we weren’t anticipating a fight, but it never hurt to be prepared.

Silently, I led my band outside the stockade. Pitch-soaked torches threw red light onto the tall pine trees of the Grimwood. We stood with our backs to our freshly-raised stockade wall and waited. We didn’t have to wait long.

The newcomers rode up quietly, tall figures on nimble little horses appearing one by one out of the darkness. Twenty hooded and cloaked warriors called their steeds to a halt outside the stockade.

One rider came forward and pushed back a heavy hood to reveal a shining fall of golden hair. It was a woman. Her strong, fair-skinned face and bright blue eyes shone out from her dark cloak in the light of the torches. She scanned the waiting warriors and the freshly raised stockade, saying nothing. Then her eyes fell on me, and she smiled.

“Leofwine,” she greeted me.

“Cara Ironside,” I replied. “Welcome to our camp.”

She cast another critical glance over the stockade, then raised an eyebrow. “Quick work,” she said. “Expecting trouble?”

For answer, I gestured to the gate. “Come inside and bring your warriors. I’ll tell you all about it.”

She shrugged, dismounted, and followed me into the camp.

This was not the first time we’d met. Cara Ironside was well-known around my hometown of Saxehold, and she had caught my eye before now. It was no secret that I found her attractive, but we were both warriors in our prime. In Saxehold, romantic relationships were not considered appropriate between active war leaders. That didn’t stop me looking at her, however. When we got to the central fire, our warriors following, she shrugged out of her cloak to reveal figure-hugging leather armor. I ran my eyes up and down the lithe curves of her body with frank admiration. She returned my look and smiled.

“Well, Leo,” she said, and I was pleased to hear that she shortened my name to the more familiar form, “are you going to tell me about it?”

I looked around. Cara’s warriors were all women, some of the best shield-maidens in Saxehold. They all crowded around the central fire, side by side with my warriors. There was some good-natured jostling and flirting going on, and some men were bringing meat and ale from the stores to prepare a meal. One man was hauling out a harp, and another had got a game of dice going with two of Cara’s shield-maidens.

“Let’s go somewhere quieter,” I suggested. Cara glanced around at our gathered warriors, smiled at the group playing dice, then nodded her agreement.

We went to my tent, which was set up a little way off from the main fire. I gave orders for food and drink to be brought to us, and we went inside. The tent was made from well-cured hides and carpeted with furs. Heat and red light radiated out from a brazier of burning charcoal which sat in the center of the snug space. Cara looked around approvingly.

“This is comfortable,” she said, “and well-kept. These furs...?” She gestured at the thick bearskin and wolfskin rugs which covered the floor and made up the generous sleeping pallet.

“All my own kills, of course,” I said, letting the pride in my work come through in my words.

“Impressive,” she said, and I could tell that she meant it. She sat down by the brazier, loosening her collar and continuing to look around the tent with her careful, observant eye. Her golden hair glowed like polished bronze in the light of the brazier. I was suddenly very glad that I took care to keep my tent tidy and in good order.

There was wine on a low table at one side of the tent, and I poured some into silver cups for us. She eyed hers appreciatively as she took it from my hand, then smelled the wine and took a sip.

“So, how much do you know already?” I asked as I sat opposite her. She regarded me thoughtfully, took another swallow of wine, then set her cup down beside her.

“I only know what Thane Johan told me, Leofwine. The Festering has taken hold in the Westmarsh, and you are tasked with finding the source of it. You can only take one companion, and for some reason, that companion has to be me. He told me you and your warband were camping here, in the Grimwood on the edge of Westmarsh, and that I should come and find you straight away. Nothing more. It’s all very mysterious.”

There was a discreet tapping on the outer ridgepole of the tent, and a man entered with a platter of roasted meat and some freshly-cooked bread. When he had left, Cara took out her bone-handled belt knife and casually cut half the meat, slapped it on a slice of bread, and began to eat. She chewed, looked at me meaningfully, then swallowed. “Well, go on,” she said, gesturing at me with her bread. “Tell me everything!”

So I took a breath and told her.

Nine days earlier, I was woken by a voice calling my name. I sat up, only to find that I wasn’t in my chambers in Thane Johan’s castle at Saxehold. Instead, I was standing upon a grassy sward overlooking green hills. It was a hilltop, and there were ruins, old bits of stone sticking up out of the grass in a rough ring, as if a tower had stood here once. The sun was high in a bright blue sky, and it was warm, warmer than I’d ever known Saxehold to be.

Sitting on the remains of a section of wall was an old man dressed in a tattered gray robe, with long gray hair and a scraggly gray beard. He looked like a hermit in his humble clothes, with his bare feet drumming against the stone. On the wall beside him there was a drinking cup and a piece of bread. He looked up as if he had only just seen me, and then jumped off the wall and hurried over. The grass was up to his knees. Despite how vivid the scene was, I was convinced I must still be dreaming, so I simply stood and waited for him as he approached.

“There you are at last!” he said, sounding harassed. “I’ve been waiting for... well, I don’t quite know how long, but I’ve been waiting.”

“What is this place?” I asked him. “Who are you?”

He stood with his hands on his hips, his long beard wagging from side to side as he shook his head disapprovingly.

“You mean to say you don’t know who I am? You’ve never seen me before? You young folk are all the same, no memory of... what was I saying? Anyway. I am one of the Keepers. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Keepers.”

I was trying not to laugh. He was dressed like the lowest kind of beggar, and yet here he stood glaring up at me, berating me as if he were a high lord and I was a disobedient child. I decided to humour him.

“Ah, the Keepers!” I said, knowingly, though I’d never heard of them before.

With incredible speed, he darted forward and struck me on the arm with much more force than I would have thought possible from such a wizened old fellow.

“Don’t give me your cheek!” he said, wagging a finger at me. “This is no laughing matter. I have a quest for you, a job which you must do. A test, if you will, to measure your... abilities.”

That piqued my interest. “I’m listening,” I said.

His brow furrowed, and he turned to look out over the pleasant view.

“The Festering comes,” he said, and the light faded for a moment, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. “On the western border of your land, the Festering has taken hold of an ancient relic of enormous power.”

“What is this relic?” I asked.

“It is the helmet of Theodoric Ironside, a great warrior of the ancient world. In the old days, powerful warriors bound their essences to enchanted items, but then the Festering came, and corrupted the joining between the great warriors and their items. The Festering draws on the power of the ancient ones to feed itself and spread its corruption all over the lands. It has bound itself to this relic, and you, Leofwine, must travel to the heart of the Festering and free the Helm of Ironside from its torment. Go to your Thane, and tell him what you have seen here. Tell him he has a role to play; he must choose you one companion, and you must accept his choice.”

Then he reached out and placed his gnarled hand in the center of my chest and pushed me gently backward. The scene faded, and I woke for a moment in the familiar surroundings of my bedroom in the Thane’s castle. A strange dream, I thought, then turned over and went back to sleep.

Cara was finishing her meal as I concluded the tale of my strange experience.

“But you told the Thane?” she asked after a moment’s silence.

I nodded. “When I woke in my bed the next morning, my arm was bruised where The Keeper had struck me, and there was grass stuck to my feet. It was clearly more than just a crazy dream, so I went to Thane Johan immediately and told him the whole story. When I told the Thane, he took it very seriously. He told me this was the legendary Call of the Keepers, and that it was imperative that we should obey. He would choose a companion to go with me, as instructed, then he told me to gather my warband and go immediately to Grimwood on the border between Saxe and Westmarsh and wait there for the companion whom he would choose. That’s the whole story. I had no idea who he would pick, but I’m glad it was you. The thought of running a mission like this with you is pretty attractive.”

She grinned at me. “You’ll be glad to know I feel the same. I was getting a bit bored with goblin raids from the northern mountains, and someone needs to do something about the Festering. It’s never been this close to Saxe before. Also, I understand why Thane Johan picked me. I’m one of the last descendants of the Clan of Ironside, and Theodoric Ironside is our legendary ancestor. If I can help you rescue his Helm from a curse and cleanse the Festering from Westmarsh at the same time, then I’m all in!”

“Excellent!” I grinned. “We’ll do well together, I’m sure. What skills have you been focusing on recently?”

She placed a hand on her pouch and gave me a cunning look. “A few potions of a new design. As you well know, I’m a battle druid, Leo. Experimenting with potions is a big part of my skill building. Of course, I keep up my bladework and I’ll always love my bow, but the potions have been my main focus recently. What about you?”

“I haven’t changed. It’s been axes for me, always axes,” I said, slapping the huge two-handed, double-headed monster of an axe that lay beside me. She eyed it critically.

“That’s a big weapon. You never fancy something smaller?”

“I’ve been practicing with two smaller ones recently, one in each hand, and I’ve a belt of throwing axes too, but it takes a lot of practice. Unless something crazy happens, I think the two-hander will always be my best weapon.”

Cara nodded thoughtfully. “Tomorrow, we’ll head alone into the Festering, seeking the heart of the corruption. We must be prepared for anything.”

The next morning, I rose from my bed at the first glimmer of gray light. At first glance, I thought the whole camp was asleep, except for the men who had watch duty. Then I saw Cara. She was dressed in a light, flowing dress of pale blue, and her feet were bare. Her long blonde hair hung loose down her back. Her maidens had pitched their tents along the stockade wall nearest the gate, and Cara’s tent was larger and finer than the rest.

She was going through the movements of a form using a long, unusual-looking straightsword. When she saw me watching her, she stopped and walked over to me. She was naked under her blue dress, and the slight breeze pressed the thin fabric against the curves of her body, clearly outlining her curved hip, lush breasts, and erect nipples. I looked, and she knew I looked, but she did not seem to mind. She tossed her hair back and fixed me with her bright blue eyes.

“That smell,” she said. “Is that the Festering?”

I breathed in deeply through my nose. Under the rich scents of the tall pine trees that surrounded the stockaded camp, I could catch it. A sickly smell, like something dead left in the sun.

“You get used to it after a few days,” I said. “I’d almost stopped noticing it. Yes, that’s the Festering. You can see it in the Westmarsh if you walk to the top of the ridge.”

“I’d like to have a look, I think, before we go down.”

“All right. Now?”

She nodded. “Let me get my leathers on, then we’ll go.”

When Cara emerged from her tent dressed again in her leather armor, we left the stockade and walked together up to the edge of the ridge that looked down on the Westmarsh.

The Westmarsh had always been a beautiful place, a vast and untouched fen that stretched for miles. It was home to countless beasts, birds, insects, and it was said that benevolent spirits occupied the little tufts of woodland that dotted it here and there. Folk seldom ventured out into the marshlands. There were no paths, and there were pockets of deep water hidden by floating carpets of thick mosses. It could be a dangerous place for the unwary, but for the people of Saxe, the vast expanse of Westmarsh had always been a reassuring presence. North, south, and east, we would always have to watch our borders, but to the west, the vast marshlands ran right up to the cliffs at the edge of the Grimwood and kept an impenetrable guard on the western borderland of Saxe. Until now.

Now, in a broad swathe of decay that cut through the flat landscape, the Festering had turned the lush green of the wetland to a sickly gray. Noxious vapors rose from the waters. On either side, there was still a wide expanse of untouched green, but the influence of the Festering cut like a huge arrowhead across the Westmarsh, the tip of the arrow pointing toward the cliff where we stood.

“Ugly, isn’t it?” she said, and her voice shook a little.

“Does it affect you?” I asked her. “I mean, do you feel it? In your heart.”

She didn’t look at me, but she nodded, slowly.

“I do too,” I assured her. “The influence is less strong with me, but I feel it. When we go down, it may be stronger. If it’s getting too much for you, tell me.”

Her eyes flicked up to meet mine. “Don’t worry about me, Leo, I’ve got something that will do the trick I think.” She patted her bulging potion belt and smiled. “When do we leave?”

“As soon as we get our bags from the camp and rouse our warriors to see us off. If we leave now, we’ll have plenty of daylight to make use of. The Festering will be bad during the day, but I guess it’ll be even worse at night.”

Back at the camp, all was activity and bustle as the men and women of our honor guard got ready to see us off. It had been agreed that this stockade should be occupied by our warriors either until the Festering withdrew, or we returned with fresh orders. If nothing changed for a year and a day, our warriors were to pick new leaders from among their own ranks, and return to the service of Thane Johan of Saxehold. Neither my men nor Cara’s shield-maidens were particularly happy to see us go off on this dangerous quest alone, but they all understood the honor that came with such a quest.

We did not know how long our quest would take, so we packed enough rations to last for two weeks with care. The water in the Festering would be foul, but Cara had a potion which would render even the foulest water drinkable, so we were saved the trouble of having to carry many waterskins. We got our gear together, lifted our weapons, and in a very short time, we were ready to go.

I had my big two-handed axe, my leather and iron armor, and a cloak of brown bearskin. At Cara’s urging, I’d also brought my pair of one-handed axes and my belt of small throwing axes. I’d considered bringing a bow and a quiver of arrows, but decided against it, since that was one of Cara’s particular specialisations. She looked good as we got ready to go. Her straightsword was at her hip, and she carried two long curved knives there as well. Slung around her hips above the swords she had her potion belt; this had a bewildering array of different holders for tubes, vials, pouches, bottles, and the many small tools of her trade. Her cloak was of fine sable, black as night, and her boots were knee high, made of supple leather and also dyed black. Slung across her back she carried a neatly-sized recurve bow and a quiver of arrows.

She met my eyes and grinned.

“Ready?” I asked.

She nodded once. “Let’s go.”

The path down the cliffside to the marshes was steep and rocky, with steps and handholds cut here and there to aid descent. We scrambled down onto the flats and stood for a moment, catching our breath and looking out over the Westmarsh.

“The Festering begins over there,” I said, pointing.

Cara shaded her eyes, peering through the haze. “I can’t see much. The sense of it is strong here, though.”

“It is. I feel it strongly, too. We’re likely to meet enemies soon after we enter. The Festering changes and mutates creatures as well as the landscapes they inhabit. Let’s be on our guard.”

We set off into the marshlands. The ground was thick green moss, with tufts of dry grasses here and there. Our feet sank into the spongy moss up to the ankles. After we’d walked a short way from the cliff edge, we glanced back. On the clifftop, we could see through the haze the figures of our warriors, watching our progress as we made our way into the mist.

We came to the edge of the Festering suddenly, after about half an hour’s careful walking. There was no sign of the cliff behind us now, and the mists wreathed around us so thickly that we couldn’t see more than twenty yards in any direction.

Cara, who was ranging a little ahead of me, came upon the edge first. She stopped and let out a hissing breath between her teeth. She was pale and her eyes were wide as she stared at the pallid gray expanse of grass and slimy water.

To me, it seemed like waves of gray-brown energy flowed through the air from the edge of the gray, outward; the spreading influence of the Festering. I felt it, but it did not have any effect on me. Cara was not so lucky.

She leaned over with her hands on her knees, panting like an exhausted runner. I began to approach her, but she waved me away.

“Ugh,” she croaked, “I’ll be fine, just give me a minute.”

She straightened up and rummaged at her belt, before coming up with a glass bottle full of some dark blue liquid. With deft, practiced movements she unstoppered the bottle. I saw that the bottle top had a fine glass dropper attached to it. She squeezed the flexible bottle top and drew some liquid into the dropper, then carefully put two drops of the liquid under her tongue.

Immediately, her body was suffused with a soft blue light, which pulsed three times like a heartbeat, then faded. Cara smiled, rolled her shoulders, and breathed out a long sigh of relief. The color was back in her cheeks as she carefully screwed the top of the bottle back on and replaced it in her belt.

“That’s impressive!” I said.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” she grinned. “It’s a powerful guard against evil influences, designed to ward off malign magic. Do you need some? It’s very concentrated, so one bottle will do many doses.”

“I don’t need any. The Festering doesn’t influence me the way it does other people.”

“No? Why’s that?”

“I’ll tell you on the way. Come on.”

Together, we stepped into the Festering.

The marshland which lay under the influence of the Festering was not dead. Instead, its way of being alive had changed. The grass and moss was slimy and gray, and the water which came up to fill our footprints was thick and black. Looking closely at the grass, I could see that every stem was covered in what looked like a fine gray dust. When I ran my finger along a blade of grass, the dust transferred to my finger, but the grass stem was not cleaned. Instead, the gray substance reappeared like a fungus growing before my eyes. When I looked at the stuff on my finger, it wriggled as if it were full of tiny worms. I flicked it from my finger in disgust, and it hit the moss with a thick plop.

Cara gazed around her. “Well, this is horrible.” I had to agree.

“I can see where the influence is coming from,” I said.

She raised her eyebrows at me questioningly.

I shrugged. Now was not the time for an explanation of my childhood battles.

“I just can. I’ll tell you about someday, but now is not the time.”

“Can you at least tell me how it works?”

“I can do that,” I replied. “The assault It’s like waves of energy against my senses, all flowing out from a specific point. The Keeper said that the Festering uses the power of the Relic to power itself. The influence must be coming from the corrupted Relic which we’re tasked with finding.”

“The Helm of Ironside,” Cara mused. “Which direction is the influence coming from?”

I pointed into the mist. “That way.”

We hadn’t gone more than a few hundred yards when I heard a splashing sound off to the right. Cara was only a little way ahead of me, but her shape was already hazy through the thick mist.

“Cara,” I said, “there’s something...”

My axe was off my shoulder and in my hand with the speed of thought as the splashing became louder, crashing toward us. Cara began to turn, reaching for her sword, when a horrific shape loomed up out of the mist.

It was a monstrous spider, as big as a roe deer, with legs as thick as my forearms. A huge, chaotic mound of red and black eyes bulged from the top of its head, shining with a horrible intelligence. Below the eye-mound there was a wide, square jaw with chin and lips like a man’s, though much bigger. The mouth was full of a mess of razor sharp, slavering teeth.

“Arachnon!” Cara shouted, leaping backward and hauling her sword from its sheath.

The thing reared up on its back legs, waving huge clawed forelegs, chattering and screaming at us, and snapping its nightmare jaws. The Arachnon were oversized spiders which were known to dwell in the marshes. I’d fought them on occasion, but they were generally content to be left alone. Never had I seen one that looked like this.

Its high-pitched jabbering suddenly deepened to a guttural roar, and it dropped onto all its legs and charged straight at me. I swung my axe, but the creature leaped to the right with horrible speed and dived at me with one swipe of a great clawed foreleg.

I pulled my axe back in mid-swing and punched the double-bladed head upward, catching the mutated Arachnon’s flailing claw and chopping it off halfway up the leg. Black blood squirted out from the wound, splashing and hissing in the moss. Then Cara was coming at the thing from my left side, ducking in and chopping at the hideous creature’s back legs. She took off one leg at the knee joint and followed up with a huge curved slash at its piled eyes. Her cut went wide, but as the monster leaped back from her blow and tried to turn to face Cara, I stepped forward and brought the head of my axe around in a great curving two-handed swing.

My axe thudded into the monster’s head and buried itself deep in the huge mound of eyes. The Arachnon spasmed horribly, its legs crashing up and down in the black water as the life went out of it, and I wrenched my axe free and jumped away as a wash of thick, stinking yellow fluid gushed from the snapping jaws. Then there was a gurgling sigh, and the monster sank, twitching, partway into the turgid bog.

Cara gripped my arm. “Look, Leo, what’s that?” As we watched, a thin wraith of white mist came up from the corpse of the monster. It solidified into a vaguely humanoid shape, then drifted upward and disappeared into the mist above us.

“It’s the monster’s spirit,” I said. “It must be some effect of the Festering, we can see the spirits of creatures we defeat in battle.”

“Hey, do you feel something?” Cara said suddenly. I looked at her. She was standing very straight, her hand on her chest, a look of pleasure on her face. I did feel it. Somewhere inside my soul, there was a deeply satisfying feeling, like the clinking of coins into a strongbox.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Feels good though, right?”

She nodded, slowly. “Like I gained something. Strange. I’ve never felt anything like that before.”

“Let's get going. The morning is passing, and if that Arachnon is anything to go by, we’re going to have some work to do when we get to the source of the Festering.”

“All right,” she said, “but take a little of this first, and I will too.” She had unhitched a green vial from her belt, and, popping it open, she dipped a finger in and drew out a bit of thick green paste. “Hold your tongue out.”

I shrugged, and stepped forward. I had to bend down a little so she could reach my mouth. As her finger touched my tongue our gazes met and she smiled, her eyes sparkling. I drew the stuff into my mouth. There was a strange taste, bitter and sweet at the same time. I swallowed.

Green light flashed through me, followed by a warm feeling that rushed down my spine.

“Incredible,” I said as the pleasant feeling faded. Cara took a little too and placed it in her mouth.

“It will keep the cold and damp from getting to us. It’s my own recipe.”

“Good job,” I said, and she smiled at the compliment. “Now, come on. The Helm of Ironside is waiting.”

We marched off into the mist, heading in the direction from which I could sense the waves of malevolent energy emanating.

Most of the afternoon passed in a slow, wary trudge across the marshland. Now and again, we heard rustling and movement nearby, and once we heard something howling off in the distance, but we were not attacked again. As the light dimmed toward evening, we came upon something unexpected; a dark range of low hills looming out of the mist. Two spurs of land stuck out into the marsh on either side of us, enclosing a wide area of marshland in a wet, foggy valley.

I looked into the gloom. “The Festering, it’s emanating from up there. Let’s climb this nearest spur of land. Perhaps if we get a bit of height we’ll be able to see the Helm.”

“It surely won’t just be there on its own?” asked Cara as we began to climb the left-hand spur.

“I doubt it. Power like that is attractive. It’s sure to be guarded by someone... or something.”

It didn’t take long to get to the top of the ridge where the land flattened out into a wide, flat sward with a few scattered boulders. I glanced around and didn’t see anything, then I looked down.

In the valley not far below us, partly obscured by the darkling mist, there was a wooden-walled fort. The walls looked solid on three sides, but on the side nearest us, the camp used the hill we sat on as a perimeter barrier. We could slide down and land right in the camp if we wanted to.

The camp appeared deserted. Wooden sheds and shacks lined the outer walls. Peering through the gloom, I could make out what looked like a stone sarcophagus in the center of the camp. Waves of dark power pulsed from it.

“You see that?” I whispered, pointing at the sarcophagus. “That’s it. That’s where all the power is coming from. We need to get down there.”

“I don’t see any sign of anyone.”

“It might be a trap,” I said.

She looked at me, considering. “It probably is a trap. What do you want to do?”

I took my axe from my back and met her eyes, seeing my own fierce excitement mirrored in her face. “If it’s a trap, I want to spring it.”

I led the way, and Cara followed. She had her bow in hand, a long arrow nocked to the string. The wall of the valley was steep, but not sheer. We slid down fast, in a rattle of stones, landing on our feet at the base of the rough cliff.

Still no sign of any trouble.

Here, so close to the source, I found my iron resistance to the influence of the Festering being tested hard. I caught my breath and glanced at Cara to find her face determined and set. Her potion must be working.

My axe in my left hand, I gestured to her to follow me forward. She fell in, two steps behind me and to my right, her eyes scanning the dark space from side to side.

“Now!” I hissed, and we sprinted through the deserted camp, straight toward the sarcophagus.

It was a huge block of black stone, oblong and as tall as my shoulder. Running around the edge, about the level of my chest, a thin line of shadow, darker than the rest, showed where the lid fitted. I raised the head of my axe and jammed the top of the blade into the crack.

Cara stood ready, her arrow fitted and the bow half drawn. She had taken up her place to my left, turning a slow half circle and scanning the darkness, tension in every line of her supple body. I heaved, levering the stone lid up with the blade of my axe. The lid moved with a deep grinding noise. I bent my knees, huffed in a massive breath, and levered the lid up with every ounce of strength I could muster. As it rose, revealing an even blacker darkness inside, I let the axe slide down and caught the edge of the huge lid with my gauntleted fists.

With a roar of effort, I heaved the gigantic piece of stone up and away. It teetered on the edge of the sarcophagus for a moment, then toppled over. In the thick silence of the fog-bound camp, the sound of the lid shattering was like a bolt of lightning.

The tall skeleton of a mighty warrior lay in the base of the sarcophagus. In life, he must have been a huge man. He had been interred wearing his full armor, and though this was now ancient and rusted, a glance told me that it must have been very fine. His arms were crossed on his chest, and his bony hands still gripped the shafts of his twin axes. I smiled at that; an axeman, like me, but one who favoured a pair of one-handed axes, rather than a big two-hander.

“Is that it?” Cara’s voice broke in on my examination of the skeleton.

“It’s got to be.” The skull of the warrior stared up at me from inside a tall iron helmet. It had a long nose guard and broad cheek guards which could hinge over to cover the mouth. The top was rounded, and fixed in place with crossed bands of gold which glimmered in the darkness. My sense of the Festering was almost overwhelming as I focused on the helmet. This had to be it; the cursed helmet of Theodoric Ironside.

I reached out to touch it, and that was when the trap was sprung.

They came silent as the night itself, a great horde rising up out of the blackness at the edges of the camp. One moment all was empty, the next everywhere was filled with a wriggling mass of shambling figures. Countless pairs of red and yellow eyes glowed at us from the shadows of ragged hoods. Scimitars gleamed in their claws. The Festering’s dark magic must have obscured the foul creatures, working like a powerful cloaking spell that kept them hidden until this moment.

One, taller than the rest, ran forward to stand ten yards from us. He stood up to his full height, only a little shorter than Cara, and threw back his hood.

It was a Ratman. Coarse gray fur covered his long, hideous face. His eyes glowed brightly. He had two huge, pointed teeth at the end of his mouth, and a jagged double row of razor spikes running back into his mouth. A double-handed scimitar as big as my axe was in his hands. His smaller minions flowed up and clustered behind him. He threw back his head and screamed a battlecry, and all of the filthy creatures around him took up the high, ululating call.

Cara let fly her arrow, and in that same moment, as I turned away from the skeleton in the sarcophagus to grab my axe and face the enemy, the tips of my fingers brushed the Helm of Ironside.

Everything stopped.

Cara’s arrow floated in midair, and the huge Ratman’s spittle hung around his mouth. My perception of the scene spun, as if my view was spiralling out from my own body. I could see myself frozen in place, one hand reaching into the coffin, my other raising my axe. I could see my body half-turned toward Cara and the enemy. Her bowstring was caught mid-release, her hand raised up, fingers splayed, like a statue of an archer’s perfect form.

Then it was all gone.

I knelt, hands on the ground, looking down at smooth flagstones of beautifully figured marble. There was a rich floral scent in the air, like blossoms. I took a breath, when a voice spoke and I raised my head to see a powerful warrior standing a little way from me.

“Stand, Leofwine of Saxe,” he said. “We have only a little time together. Stand.”

I stood and faced him.

He was a big man, powerfully built with a long black beard flowing down over his decorated steel breastplate. Gauntlets of leather and steel covered his massive hands, and a skirt of heavy chainmail dropped down to cover his knees. Heavy riding boots showed under thick shin guards.

Despite his obvious power and strength he looked afraid. Anxiety clouded his bluff, broad face. Above his black beard, he had a strong nose and piercing dark eyes. His head was bald, and his high, intellectual brow was beaded with sweat.

All my senses were taken up with this new scene, and yet my mind was still aware of the moment which I had just left; Cara, frozen in time with an arrow in mid flight, and a horde of wicked ratmen caught in the fearful moment before the charge.

“You have come at the bidding of the Keepers?” said the warrior.

“I have. And you, you are Theodoric Ironside. I recognize the breastplate from the skeleton. Come, Ironside, say what you need to say.”

He glanced around, fearfully. “I have little time in which to say it. My curse has left me for a moment, but soon it will return... But you have come, and that is well. I am Theodoric Ironside. In life, I used an ancient magic to pour my prowess, my strength, and the power of my Glimmer into my Helm. It became a mighty artefact during my life, a vast repository of power. When my body died at last, I felt the power of the Helm become something beyond what it had been during my life. My spirit found rest in the long halls of Saxen warriors who die in honor, but my essence, my strength, my skill, and my battle lust combined in my Helm to create a magical item of immense power. It became an artifact that would grant the Persona of Ironside to one who was worthy. For years uncounted, it had awaited the coming of a warrior who could claim it.”

Here, he glanced around fearfully again. A look of sudden pain crossed his face. “Agh! It comes again! Leofwine of Saxe, you are the warrior who can claim the power of my Helm. You must claim it, and drive the vile taint from the land!”

Suddenly, he raised both hands and clawed at the space around him. The air around him was foggy and vague, and there was no clear definition to anything except his figure and mine, and the intricately carved marble slabs of the floor. And yet as I watched, a black mist gathered around Ironside’s feet. It trickled upward, inexorable as an incoming tide across flat sands. It wrapped around his shoulders, tendrils of darkness flicking out toward his mouth and his eyes.

The sight of this proud and noble warrior fumbling in rising terror at the encroaching mist raised a sudden and powerful anger in me. Without thought, I flung out one hand before me and ran at him. To my surprise, a sudden bright light shone from my hand. It bathed Ironside in white light, almost painfully bright, and the black mist was pushed away from him. The evil mist gathered together, until it was like a twisted humanoid form that loomed over Ironside.

“Back, daemon!” I roared as I ran past the warrior and crashed into the figure of mist. Wild light flashed and flared from my hands and I grabbed it, feeling greasy, slippery skin in my hands. There was a high-pitched, inhuman scream of pain, and through it a deep snarling voice roared at me. It sounded not like one voice, but a hundred all shouting in unison.

“Soul Binder!” the huge voice roared. For one long moment, I was surrounded by oily black mist, and I felt it pressing on me from all sides. From deep within myself, I felt a raw and ruthless power arise, and it burst from me in a blaze of white light, suffusing every fiber of my being with pure power.

Then it was gone.

“You defeated it! You did what I could not!” It was Ironside. He stood by me, one gauntleted hand on my arm, and his face was no longer pale or afraid.

“It was the Festering!” I said. “The Festering in physical form!”

“It was. When it corrupted my Helm and drew upon my power, it disturbed my rest and brought me back to the realm that sits on the cusp between death and life. But you have broken its grip on me, and my Helm will be yours now! I pass to you my power, my skill in battle, and my mighty soul-bound armor! Go well, now, Leofwine! Cleanse the world of the Festering wherever you find it! Free us, the great warriors of ancient days, from the corrupting influence of the evil Festering, and glory in our power! Farewell.... farewell!”

Before my eyes, he withdrew, leaning backward into the mist as if all the weight had gone out of him. His face became still, and his shape became formless and vanished even as his final farewell echoed around the strange, gray, liminal space.

There was a moment of blackness, and then, as sudden as a lightning bolt, my consciousness slammed back into my body.

The explosion of energy which accompanied my return to the battle scene took me by surprise. There was a boom like a thunderclap, and an expanding blast of bright energy swept like an enormous ripple outward from my body. It washed over Cara, but it hit the encircling ratmen with the force of a cavalry charge. The foul creatures were blasted away from us in every direction.

Cara’s arrow was knocked off course and spun ineffectually away into the darkness. The ratman commander lay stunned, twitching on the ground. Cara was nocking a fresh arrow to her bow as she turned her head to look at me in amazement. There was no time to explain, and not a moment to lose.

I reached into the coffin and grabbed the Helm. As my fingers closed around the cold metal, there was a sighing noise, and the bones, the axes, and the rest of the armor in the sarcophagus all crumbled into dust. I heard the voice of Ironside echoing in my mind as I lifted the shining Helm. “Go well, warrior, and cleanse the land of the Festering wherever you find it.”

“You can count on me,” I promised that voice.

I placed the Helm of Ironside upon my head. Immediately, I felt the power of the great warrior’s ancient relic wash through me. There was a noise like the snapping around of a key in a well-oiled lock, and as I looked down at myself, I saw my own armor transformed, as if a cloak of liquid metal were flowing down over it, solidifying into a new suit of armor. As the thick plates clicked into place, I felt new strength run into my limbs.

The darkness cleared, and I could see every detail of the scene around me. I felt taller, my arms and legs felt longer, my chest seemed broader, and energy quivered through every sinew of my body.

The axe in my hand shimmered and changed. It was no longer my familiar double-headed battle-axe; now it had a huge curved blade on one side, and a hammerhead on the other, carved in the likeness of a snarling wolf’s head. From the top of the axe a footlong spike protruded.

Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that my twinned one handed axes were still crossed on my back, but they, and the belt of nine throwing axes which hung at my hip, also had undergone a transformation. They were cleaner and brighter as if they were all freshly polished, they were all bigger, and each one had the motif of a snarling wolf on the blade.

Through his ancient magical Helm, I had claimed the Persona of Theodoric Ironside.

Cara was staring at me in frank amazement, but she did not stop to ask questions. The ratmen around us were getting to their feet again. The big Commander had retreated a little way, and now he pushed back his hood to reveal that his head was mutated into a mass of writhing tentacles. They whipped around angrily behind him as he pointed to us.

“Destroy them!” he screeched in his high rat’s voice.

In a wave, the rats came rushing forward. Cara pulled a black bottle from her potion belt and tugged the stopper free with her teeth. She had her bow, and a nocked arrow, held in her right hand. Holding the potion bottle in her left, she poured a little onto the head of the arrow then she lobbed the rest of the bottle into their midst. A blinding flash of liquid flame exploded outward as the bottle shattered on the ground. Fire engulfed the tightly packed ratmen, and they screamed and flailed as their filthy garments and dry fur crackled and flared like dry grass in the consuming flame. They charged about in panic, setting fire to their companions and breaking the momentum of the wave.

“On, on!” screamed the Commander, and they charged again. As Cara leaped backward, up onto the tomb of Ironside, I swung my newly-upgraded axe around and waded into the ratman horde. Time to see what the Persona of Ironside could do.

The axe carved through the ratmen like a scythe through corn. With one great sweep, I took out ten of them. Blood squirted and guts flew through the air. On the backswing, the great wolf’s head hammer pulverized five more. From the top of the tomb, Cara let loose the arrow she had treated with her exploding potion. She fired it high into the air, and it ignited as it flew, sailing in a great arc up and over, and lighting up the terrified faces of the thronging ratmen. As it ignited, Cara slung her bow onto her back and drew her two long knives.

Two more swings of my axe carved a path through the ratmen back to the sarcophagus. As Cara leaped from the platform to land at my side, her arrow landed in the center of the crowd of foes with a great explosion of flame. Ratmen were hurled back in every direction. I moved to put my axe on my back, and found that it lifted and snapped into place of its own accord! I only had to think of drawing my twin one-handed axes, and they flew into my grasp.

Cara smiled at me and met my eyes, and together we charged the ratmen.

Chaos reigned in the camp. Everywhere, fires were burning. Some of the burning rats had evidently fled back to the shacks that lined the edges of the camp. These were now on fire, and the bright flames lit up the night sky and blazed with heat.

The ratmen barely resisted us, and when we charged together straight into their midst, they turned and fled. I took the heads off four with my axes, and Cara ran another one through with her two knives. That was enough. They ran from us, screeching and howling and dropping their weapons. Some clambered over the wooden wall of the camp, while others packed into the gateway. Many ran to the shadowed space below the walls and disappeared into holes in the ground, vanishing from sight in their underground burrows.

Cara and I looked at each other, and then I caught sight of the Commander. He was loping toward his burrow, shoving his minions out of his way in his eagerness to get away from us.

Then something changed. A black mist rose up from the black sarcophagus, whirling in a spinning vortex around the head of the great rat Commander.

“What is it?” cried Cara in alarm.

“It’s the Festering!” I answered. I recognized it from the psychic realm where I’d fought the daemon darkness and released Ironside from its clutches. It was the Festering made flesh, a conscious, living entity made of the foul taint which plagued the land.

With horrible speed, it took a hold of the Commander, and he stopped in his retreat and turned to face us. The shadowy mist congealed around him, then his head snapped back and his mouth opened in a scream of pain as the evil being wrapped itself around him and took over his will. The scream changed, from the single high-pitched scream of the rat to the low, crowd-like roar of the Festering.

“Soul Binder, you will die today!” As the remainder of the other rats disappeared into the darkness, the Commander’s body transformed under the influence of the Festering. It grew, and with a horrible squelching sound, two new pairs of arms burst from the creature’s side. The yellow eyes grew, and the jaw opened impossibly wide as the creature dropped and ran at full speed toward us, moving like a great spider on its many arms. When the creature reached us, it swung its huge forelimbs right at me, and the blow clanged off my shining armor with a flash of white light. I leaped in and aimed at the face with my twin axes, but the creature dodged with lightning speed.

Cara dropped and rolled away, pulling her bow from her back and nocking an arrow in one swift movement. The arrow flew, and another was nocked and drawn back as the first thudded into the monster’s side. It bellowed in pain and leaped at me, arms reaching out to grab me in a death-grip. I ducked, and as the beast flew over me, I slammed one axe and then the other into its muscled chest. Blood sprayed from the wounds, and I let the axes go as I rolled away. They were wedged in bone.

As I rolled to the side, the creature landed in a heap and then sprang up again. Heedless of the blades sticking out of its chest, it reared up onto its hind legs and prepared to charge again. Cara’s second arrow flew and struck it in the shoulder. The monster swayed under the impact but kept coming.

Kneeling, I reached for my belt of throwing axes and one leaped up into my hand. I flung it, glorying in my sure aim and perfect technique. This was the effect of the Persona; I had never felt so comfortable using throwing axes before. A second axe flowed from my belt into my hand as the first thudded into the ratman’s face, where it stuck. Another arrow, and then another sank into the monster’s chest, but still it lumbered toward us on its hind legs, trailing blood and black mist as it came.

I reached for my two-handed axe, and it appeared in my grip. With a yell, I charged forward to meet the beast and took off one of its legs at the knee with one mighty swing. The creature toppled, its six upper arms wheeling as it tried to keep balance. Cara ran up and stood over the creature with an arrow at the ready. The tip of her arrow glowed a sulfurous green; she had treated it with one of her potions.

The flames of the burning sheds soared high, illuminating the scene with stark yellow light and casting inky shadows all around. The roar and crackle of the flames filled the air as the monstrous ratman toppled and crashed to the ground, his maimed limb squirting steaming blood into the cold night air.

I hauled my huge axe up and spun it in the air so the wolf’s head hammer was ready to perform the final blow. Cara’s arrow flew into the creature’s heart. There was a muffled boom. Green light suffused the ratman, and his whole body bubbled and shifted, but he did not die. Instead, with terrifying speed, he lashed out with one flailing arm and caught Cara by the ankle. He wrenched himself up, his huge mouth gaping wide as he flung himself at her, but I brought the great shining wolf’s head down on the ratman’s skull.

His head burst like an overripe melon under the hammer blow, and an ugly red and black liquid splashed across the ground. His body twitched and flailed, and Cara leaped back with a cry of disgust, kicking away the clawed hand that had clutched her ankle. The black mist of the Festering rose from the ratman, and I heard that roaring multitudinous voice howling as if from a great distance. The mist rose in a cloud above us and attempted to come together again, but at that moment, a cold gust of wind swept through the camp, and the black smoke was dispersed.

Cara turned and marched toward the edge of the camp, pulling a potion from her belt. When she got to one of the ratholes, she hefted the bottle and said two words under her breath. The potion glowed yellow for a moment, then she dropped it into the hole. For the space of a breath, we waited, then there was a hissing sound and a muffled screeching from far below.

“A poison,” she stated. “It will disperse a cloud of vapor throughout the rat tunnels below this camp. No ratman will live here after this night.”

I nodded silently, then turned away. Already, the gray dust and the sense of sorrow and horror which accompanied the Festering were passing from this place. I walked back to the middle of the camp, by the now-empty black sarcophagus.

“What happened back there?” Cara asked.

“I bound the Persona of Theodoric Ironside, and I can now channel it, using the abilities of the great hero in battle.”

“Your axe work was certainly impressive. I’d love to be able to do such a thing.” There was admiration and envy in her voice, but no jealousy.

I smiled at her. “Perhaps we’ll find some way for you and I to share in this power. I can’t think how, though perhaps if we... but what’s this?”

Three items had materialized out of the air in front of me. They hung there, a great banded iron shield, an axe like those I now carried, and a green gemstone as big as my fist which glinted and sparkled in the firelight. Amazement filled me, and I stepped back to admire these strange apparitions that had taken physical form.

“This must be something to do with your new Persona,” Cara said, “but what could it mean?”

As she spoke, I felt that same satisfying feeling which I had felt after we’d killed the Arachnon, and Cara gasped, one hand at her chest.

“You feel that too?” she asked.

“I do. I think it’s from killing these creatures. It’s like coin which I can spend.”

I glanced again at the items which hung before me, and intuitively made the connection. “These are upgrades!” I said. “We’re earning some resource by killing enemies, and I can spend mine now that the battle is over!”

With one hand, I reached out toward the shield. “The shield of Ironside represents strength, and the power to protect the weak from harm. I choose to develop that pathway.”

As I spoke the words, the other two pathways receded and the shield grew larger. A branching tracery of lines spread out from it, and I could see other items at junctures further off. I couldn’t make out what they were, but I knew that I would be able to access new upgrades as I continued to progress and use the power of Ironside’s Persona for good.

Suddenly, there was a flash of bright light, and the vision vanished. I felt a lurch, as if the ground had bucked under me. White light shone around me, and blue light blasted down in a column from the night sky. There was a rumble like distant thunder, and I felt my armor changing, growing, and my height in it expanding. Looking down, I saw that the axe now had runes graven into the blade, and the armor had the same.

“You were imbued with power from the heavens?” Cara questioned in amazement.

“I chose an upgrade, and it took effect on my armor and weapons. I guess whenever that happens I’ll gain new strength and add elements to the armor that the Persona grants.”

Cara drew breath to speak, when we heard a coughing and spluttering noise. We both whirled, and my axe was in my hands, ready for anything. But to my surprise, it was none other than the old man who had given me this mission, the man from my dream.

“It’s the Keeper!” I exclaimed.

“Oh, yes, it’s me all right!” he grumbled. He was wiping his mouth as he came over toward us. “You young people, all for bangs and flashes! Can’t even upgrade a mythical suit of powerful relic armor without a lot of fancy bright lights, can you?”

It was so incongruous that I had to smile. As he approached, I noticed that his robes seemed in better condition than when I’d spoken to him before. He seemed also to have boots on his feet, and that was another improvement.

“You know this man?” asked Cara. She had an arrow nocked and ready to fire.

“I do,” I replied. “This is the Keeper, the man who gave me this quest to find the Helm of Ironside and free it from the Festering.”

“This?” she asked incredulously. “This is the Keeper?”

“Enough!” cried the old man, holding his hands up imperiously and beginning to declaim in a dramatic tone. “You have passed the test, Leofwine of Saxe! You are the Soul Binder, Wielder of Legendary Personas whose coming has been awaited for many a long age. You are the warrior who will cleanse the Festering, freeing the innocents from its taint in many lands and across many worlds! Now that you have shown yourself worthy, you must begin your quest throughout the worlds. There are many Personas in the universe, and many great warriors whose power rests in their ancient relics. The Festering is a danger to them all, and to all worlds.”

He let his hands fall and looked at both of us thoughtfully for a moment.

“As you fight, you will gain Renown. This can be spent as you have discovered, on improving your armor and your skills. Use it wisely; as you grow in power, the cost of upgrading will grow also. The Festering can bind all things, people, animals, even places and objects, but the most dangerous bindings are the Festered relics of the ancient warriors. You will free many things from the taint in the course of your quests, and many of them will grant you Personas with new powers and special abilities. Now, I can show you your first mission.”

He drew from his pocket a round, polished ball of crystal. I recognized it at once. It was a scrying crystal. The old man placed the crystal on the ground and, with a practiced motion, he waved his hand over it. Instantly, a bright space appeared above the crystal. It was as tall as a doorway, and as broad, though it was oval shaped rather than rectangular. I heard Cara gasp next to me.

“A portal!” she cried. “I never thought I’d see one of those. Only the most powerful of magic users can control portals!”

“The most powerful magic users, and the Keepers. Although some might say we are one and the same,” said the old man, sounding pleased with himself. He gestured at the portal. Through it, we could see a view of a very different place. There was no dark sky there, no deserted boggy marshland. Instead, a bright and sunny scene was revealed to us. Snow-capped mountains glowed in the sun against blue skies. At the feet of the mountains, perched on the top of rugged cliffs above an azure sea, there was a little town. The houses were single-storied and were made of light timber frames and grass roofs. In the center of the town, a larger building of stone rose up, like a castle. This central building had many layers and a stout outer wall of stone. Red roof tiles gleamed in the sun. The gable ends of the building’s roof were turned curiously upward, in a way I had never seen in Saxe.

Stepping closer, I saw a strange sight. The view changed, rising and flying smoothly closer to the town. Looking down upon the strange civilization, I saw that the castle and the market square were patrolled by soldiers in strange armor. They had shoulder-plates of glinting black enamelled metal, and stout helmets which protected their faces and necks, adorned with decorative metal plumage attached to the front of the helmet. They moved in groups of twos and threes, and they were each armed with a pair of long curved swords.

“These soldiers you see are the Samurai of Yamato, and this town is called Otara in their language. Yamato is very different from the land of Saxe, with many customs, traditions, and magics which will be strange to you. Go carefully. There are new enemies near the town. There are four, but I know only of one; Yukana, a brave Samurai from the town who ventured out alone to investigate the mysterious threats. He was caught and enslaved by the Festering, and now he stalks the outside of the town he used to protect, and the folk fear to leave their town at night. You must defeat Yukana and cleanse him of the Festering. In doing so you will bind his Persona to yourself. Once you have succeeded in that, you must find the other threats for yourself.”

“And what about me?” Cara asked, stepping boldly forward.

“Ah!” exclaimed the old man with a mischievous glint in his eye. “I had not forgotten about you. Cara Ironside, you must choose. Will you stay in Saxe? Or will you go with Leofwine? His quest will be a long one, and indeed he may never return! Who can say where that choice would lead you...?”

She turned to look at me, naked lust in her eyes. “You know what this means, don't you, Leo?”

From the way her gaze roamed over my body, I had an idea, but I preferred to play it coy.

“An adventure beyond anything we’ve ever known?”

“You could say that.” Her tongue flashed across her teeth. “And the oaths we swore on our world won’t apply. We won’t be leaders of our respective armies. . .” She let her words linger, and I smiled at her.

“Perhaps we will finally have our chance, eh, Cara?”

The Keeper coughed loudly. “So, you will be going with Leo then?” he asked Cara.

“I will go with Leo,” she said decisively. “There is no greater threat that I know of than the Festering. What more could I ask of my life’s work than to join in this noble quest to cleanse the taint from all lands and worlds? There are, of course, other benefits to being away from Saxe.” Again, her ice-blue eyes set to scouring my body.

The old Keeper nodded and wagged his beard at her, well pleased with this. “Good, good,” he said. “You pass the test. I could not choose for you, but it is essential that Leo have strong and brave companions with him. Without your choice, the prospects would not be so good.”

“Keeper,” she asked, “I, too, have felt the gathering of Renown in my heart as I’ve dispatched my enemies. But if I do not have the ability to bind Personas, then how can I use my Renown to gain upgrades?”

“Ah, you may not be able to bind the Personas, but who’s to say you cannot use them? I am limited in what I may tell you, but I will risk telling you this: there is a way for Leo to share his Personas with you. You cannot do it just now, but you may be able to in future. In fact, it’s essential that you learn to eventually.”

“But how? Can’t you tell us?”

The old man threw back his head and cackled, seeming in high good humour.

“No, no, my friends, I cannot tell you. You and Leo must work out that particular aspect of the magic for yourselves.” He glanced from Cara to me and back again and smiled secretively. “I have no doubt that you will work it out, sooner or later.” He chuckled, shaking his head, and would say no more on the subject.

“There is another matter,” he said. “Of language.” He raised his hand, and a coolness washed over me. I glanced at Cara and saw that she had experienced the same sensation.

“With this enchantment of mine,” he said after the feeling had vanished from me, “you will be able to speak and understand the languages of all peoples you come across. A rather powerful spell, I must admit, but what else do you expect of a Keeper of Cultures?”

“Thank you,” I said. “It would have been rather difficult had we not been able to speak with the natives.”

“Say no more,” he said. “Now, you should be off. Tarrying will only provide the Festering with more time to work its taint on the land of Yamato.”

“You’re sure you want to come with me, Cara?” I asked, laying a hand on her arm.

Her eyes shone as she looked up into my face. “More than anything,” she breathed.

“Very well, then.”

I took her arm. The portal had shifted its view again, and we were now looking at the top of a soft, grassy hilltop some way away from the town. I could just see the red roof of the foreign castle poking out over the treetops a little way away.

I took a last glance around the devastation of the ratmen’s camp. The flames were dying away now, and the fog had lifted. Many cold stars sparkled high in the velvet sky.

The light from the new world shone on our faces through the portal. I caught a smell of the sea carried on the new and humid air of the new world.

Cara looked up into my face and smiled. She squeezed my arm, and together we stepped through the portal, out of Saxe, and onto the thick, warm grass of the new world.

“That smell!” exclaimed Cara, breathing deeply.

The change of air was the first thing that struck me, too. The air of the Westmarch had been thick with the smell of smoke and battle, the deep damp of the marshes, and the repulsive undercurrent of the festering. As we stepped through the portal into the land of Yamato, I breathed deep, smelling a crisp sea breeze that cut through a humid, richly-perfumed air.

The grass was deep and thick, rising up to our knees. We stood for a moment, letting our eyes adjust to the bright sun.

“It feels like early summer here,” Cara said in a wondering tone. She was gazing around with an air of professional interest. “It’s much warmer than Saxe! I wonder what plants there may be here for me to use in my potion-crafting?”

We were standing in a woodland clearing on the top of a small hill. The clearing was surrounded by small, low-growing trees with dark, reddish bark that gleamed in the sun. Their leaves were gracefully pointed, and from every branch, big bunches of blossom flowers frothed like sea foam. The flowers ranged from bright white, through soft pinks, to a dark, blood-red. The sweet scent that permeated the air was coming from these blossoms. In the spaces between these trees nestled an abundance of flowering plants.

As I gazed around at the new land, Cara took a few steps away and knelt with a cry of delight to examine a dark-leaved bush. As she moved, a flight of creamy yellow butterflies fluttered up from the thick grass and darted here and there in the glade. I laughed aloud, gazing around at the beauty of the place.

I reached up to wipe a bead of sweat from my brow. It was warm here, and the armor of Ironside seemed unnecessary just at present.

I reached toward the Helm, intending to remove it, and a sudden strange feeling washed over me. It was like stepping through a curtain of warm water. I felt lighter, and looking down I found that the armor was gone.

Instead of the heavy white-enamelled steel plating, I was wearing a very well-made tunic of fine blue wool. Dark trousers of good black linen and high leather boots clad my legs and feet, and a belt of sturdy leather cinched my waist to finish the outfit. Fixed to the belt on the left were three big pouches containing my food supplies. On the right, there was a steel belt knife in a sheath. The belt, the knife, and the pouches all bore the wolf’s head motif of Ironside.

Clearly, this ensemble was another aspect of the Ironside Persona, one which I could switch into at will when I needed a lighter and more comfortable gear set.

Cara turned with a handful of dark leaves in her hand and looked me up and down appreciatively.

“My ancestor’s Persona has good taste in clothing as well as skill in battle,” she commented. Her eyes lingered on my waist and chest. “Can you switch between them at will?”

“I think so; the Persona seems to respond to my intentions.”

I took a breath before I brought my focus to the battle armor. Immediately, that same warm feeling bathed me for a moment, and I was rewarded by the satisfying clicking into place of the enormous suit of armor. The huge two handed axe leapt into my hand in response to my thought.

Cara laughed out loud as I made a fierce face and struck a battle-ready pose.

“It’s brilliant,” she said.

With a thought, I switched smoothly back into the humbler tunic and trousers.

“I wish I could do that.”

“Well, the Keeper did say that there was a way for you and I to share the Personas.”

“That’s true. I wonder what he meant?”

“He seemed sure we’d work it out for ourselves in time.”

She nodded, looking at me thoughtfully. In one hand, she held a bunch of dark leaves.

I walked over to her. “What’s that you’ve got?” I asked.

“This? Oh, it’s a plant we call Greenroot. It’s a binder that I use as a basis for a lot of my potions. In Saxe, it’s mainly grown in sheltered spots away from the wind, sometimes even in artificially heated glasshouses. Here in Yamato, it seems to grow wild. I wonder what else there is growing wild in this land? I’d bet there’s all kinds of useful stuff I can gather.”

I smiled at her enthusiasm as she gazed around the clearing with the bunch of leaves clutched in her hand.

“Let’s take a walk,” I suggested. “Maybe you’ll find more ingredients as we go.”

“What direction shall we head in?” she asked, looking around.

I pointed to the red roofs of the town, barely visible over the trees. “That way. I’d like to reach the town, but not too directly. We should get an idea of what the surrounding land is like first.”

It was about mid-morning by the sun. The town was to the north-east. In the north, the wooded hills climbed steadily away to the distant mountains. From our view of the land through the portal, I figured that the sea lay to the east and the south. To the west, I could see nothing over the trees. I had no idea what lay in that direction.

Questions filled my mind as we headed off in the general direction of the town.

What new threats would the Festering present in this land? The Keeper had mentioned magic; what form would they take? What were the people’s traditions that the Keeper had mentioned? And what would the people of this land make of Cara and I? From the brief glimpse I’d had of the people, they were smaller than Cara and I, with darker hair and skin than either of us had. I suspected we might look rather strange to them.

Under the warm shade of the blossom trees, the grass was shorter, and the woodland bustled with life. Tiny brightly colored birds darted about in the branches above our heads, and a multitude of small creatures flittered busily in the grass. Dragonflies feasted on the clouds of smaller flies that hung in the shade below the blossom-rich branches.

“This is as different from Saxe as I could imagine,” I said to Cara as we moved slowly through the woods.

“It is, in many ways,” she replied, her eyes on the ground. “But for all that, a lot of the plants here are familiar. Some are almost exactly the same, and some are like bigger versions of familiar plants.”

She stopped and crouched, taking a few leaves from a low creeping plant with bright yellow flowers and adding them to the already generous bundle under her arm.

“I want to stop and craft a potion or two,” she said.

“Fine by me. I want a rest and a bite to eat anyway.”

I glanced around for a likely spot and saw a shaft of bright sunlight cutting through the trees away in the direction we were headed. It looked as if there might be another clearing in that direction.

“Let’s go that way and see if we can find a good spot to stop for a while.”

We walked for half an hour through the woods, Cara stopping every now and again to gather some new herb for her potions. I didn’t know much about potion plants, but I knew about gathering food in the wild.

I was pleased to see a flash of bright, sulfur-yellow peeping out from a fallen tree stump. It was a Yellow Treefall mushroom, which could be very good to eat when fresh.

I took my belt knife and cut a generous portion of the mushroom, gathering some wild onion tops from the ground around the fallen tree and adding them all to my supply pouches. Cara looked on in approval.

The brightly sunlit spot we had been heading for turned out to be more than a clearing. It was the edge of a fern-clad cliff which dropped away steeply down to a flat, grassy tableland stretching away toward the town. We were higher up than I had realized; the grassy flats were forty feet below us.

Looking in the direction of the town, I could see that it still lay some way off. The land below us was dotted with copses of trees and bushes, but these seemed tended. Paths ran through the land, and here and there smoke rose from the chimneys of little homesteads, the outlying farms surrounding the town of Otara.

Cara smiled down at the land. “This world is beautiful, peaceful, and well-cared for. That says a lot about the people.”

“Whereas Saxe is grim, austere, and cold; does that describe the people, too?” I asked with a wry smile.

She looked at me with a smile and touched my arm lightly. “Some of them, Leo. Not all.”

Directly below us, hard by the cliff, the roofs of a few simple buildings gleamed red in the sun. One looked like a simple home, with a kitchen garden out back and a little bench at the front. It was very humble, roofed with grass and made from what looked like bricks of clay or mud. Nearby, a larger building looked more formal; a tiered, red-tiled roof lay over an entranceway framed by two green-painted columns. Lamps hung from hooks on each column, and three broad stone steps led to the entrance, but there was no door.

“What could that be?” asked Cara.

“It looks like a shrine or temple of some sort,” I hazarded.

In Saxe, we had places where a fighter could give an offering to the God of War, and places where a farmer could pray to the spirits of the land for a plentiful harvest. The building we were looking at followed a similar pattern; an open entrance, which I figured symbolized the ever-present nature of the spirit or deity, and three steps up to the entrance, symbolizing the three levels of superiority of the spirit world over the earth.

As we watched, a man approached from the direction of the road. His brightly colored yellow robes fluttered in the wind as he carried a bowl of some white grain. He laid the bowl on the bottom step before bowing low to the entrance, raising his offering to the second step, and bowing again.

“Definitely a temple of some kind,” Cara said. “I wonder what deities they worship in this land?”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” I said. I was about to turn away when something caught my eye. I grabbed Cara’s arm. “Look down there! Look at the worshipper!”

The man had finished genuflecting to the temple and now raised his bowl from the final step, but a change had come over him. Instead of walking into the temple, he stood still as stone, as if frozen in place by some spell.

The sky darkened for a moment. From the open entrance of the shrine, a sudden mass of ethereal black tendrils reached out and wrapped around the frozen figure of the man. With a jerk, they drew him quickly through the door.

As he disappeared from view, a sudden wave of dark energy pulsed from the temple. It expanded swiftly in every direction, then vanished, leaving the scene as empty and peaceful as it had been before.

I heard Cara gasping as she crumpled to her knees beside me.

“It’s the Festering!” I hissed through clenched teeth. “But somehow it’s concealed from my senses. I didn’t know that was even possible. There was a wave of it when that poor worshipper was dragged in, but now it’s hidden again.”

“My potion has worn off,” Cara said.

I looked at her to find her looking pale, but determined.

“Give me a minute,” she managed to say. “I’m going to craft something more potent, and something for you as well.”

I had been looking forward to a satisfying meal, but I contented myself with chewing on a dried apple and drinking some water while Cara worked.

First, she took from her belt a little thing that looked like a hard, dried nut. When she spoke some quiet words over it, it shimmered and expanded to become a gleaming mortar and pestle. It was small, but it took hold much more than it should.

She added some fresh herbs, some dry powders from a flask at her belt, and then unstoppered a potion bottle from her belt and poured the contents in. Pale yellow light shone up from the bowl and lit her beautiful, intent face. Her full lips moved silently as she worked.

“The bowl is magical,” she explained. “I add the ingredients to it, plus some of the potion I want to replicate. So long as I get the combinations of ingredients right, the contents of the bowl should combine into a larger amount of the potion I’m trying to create.” As she spoke, she took three empty bottles from her pouch and carefully decanted the yellow liquid into them. There was a little left in the bottom of the bowl.

“Incredible,” I said as I watched her craft the potion. “Will it take long to finish? I fear for what might have happened to the worshipper.”

“Not long, no,” Cara replied. “Besides, we must be prepared for whatever evil lies in wait in the temple.” She drew a blue flower from her bundle of gathered herbs. “Let me try something with what’s left. If this plant is what it looks like, it should create...”

I leaned in closer, intrigued despite my desire to make for the temple.

There was a flash of blue light from the bowl, and she smiled grimly. “That worked. It’s a potion to turn an enemy’s own power against it. The flower that’s the critical ingredient is incredibly rare in Saxe, but here in Yamato, it seems to be everywhere.”

She decanted this last potion into an empty vial and stowed it in her belt. Then, with a wave of her hand, she transformed her mortar and pestle again. Where the shining bowl had been, there was now nothing but a little dried brown pellet like a nut. With a glance at me and a smile, she slipped it into her pouch. The rest of her bundled herbs she stowed in her pack.

Then she drank half of a potion bottle she had just filled. “It makes me immune to the sickening, terrifying effect of the Festering,” she explained as the pale glow of the potion’s effect suffused her and then faded. She looked at me consideringly. “You’re already immune to the Festering’s influence. What would happen if you took some of this potion?”

“I don’t know, but I suspect it might interfere with my ability to sense the Festering from a distance. That wouldn’t be wise.”

Cara put the half-finished bottle back in her belt. “That makes sense.”

I turned and walked along the edge of the cliff. Not far away, I could see the beginning of a path winding down to the flat land. “Let’s get down there. I don’t like the idea that the Festering can hide itself from my special senses here. It’s clear that we’ve arrived in Yamato not a moment too soon.”

We made our way quickly and carefully through the edge of the woodland and onto the path. I considered switching back to my full armor build but decided against it. I would look less intimidating to any civilians who we met, and perhaps less of a threat to any enemies. Long ago I’d learned that if you have an advantage in a fight, it was often better to conceal it until the very last moment.

The path was made of yellow gravel, well-used and well-maintained. It wound up steeply from the flat lands beside the temple. By each side, the bushes and vegetation had been clipped back, creating a tidy effect.

Cara gestured to the neat edges. “I wonder who does this?”

“These lands are cultivated by their people,” I said. “I’ve not even met any of the inhabitants yet, but already I’m starting to feel as if I like the people of Yamato.”

“All the more reason to deal with the Festering.”

We reached the flat grassy tableland at the base of the cliff without incident, but I felt tense and wary, and I could tell Cara felt the same.

Not being able to sense the source of the Festering put me on edge. Since childhood, I’d always been able to feel the Festering at the edges of my consciousness... I reined in my thoughts, away from that memory. I’d have to tell Cara about it at some point. For now, I had to keep my thoughts on the task at hand.

The shrine lay in a little clearing at the base of the cliff we had just descended. Flowering shrubs had been clipped into the elegant shapes of sitting foxes on either side of the path leading up to the shrine. Short rods of wood with woven red ropes joining them made a decorative fence bordering the approach. The grass had been fastidiously cut, creating a neat lawn all around the shrine.

“Foxes seem to be important to this shrine,” I said to Cara in a low voice, pointing out the fox motif included in the detail of the building and the approach.

The top of each wooden fence rod was carved with a fox’s head, and the same figure—a leaping fox—was carved into each corner of the shrine. The shrine was a roughly square building with walls made from vertical wooden planks. The whole building was raised up three feet off the ground on solid wooden stilts, leaving a dark gap underneath. These stilts, too, were carved to resemble sitting foxes.

We were approaching the shrine from behind. There was no sign of anyone nearby, but still I decided to hold off from wearing my full plate armor. If nothing else, these leather boots I was wearing were much quieter on the gravel road. Right now, I valued being able to move quietly. I could feel the full war-suit of Ironside hovering at the edge of my awareness, however, ready to envelope me at the speed of thought if I turned my attention to it.

Cara rested her hands on the scabbards of her long knives, ready to draw. We glanced at each other, nodded our readiness, then stepped around the corner.

The inside of the shrine was dim compared to the bright late morning sun that bathed the rest of the scene. We peered in together, not wanting to get too close. At first, I couldn’t see anything through the dimness, but as my eyes quickly adjusted, I became aware of figures in the dimness.

“Can you see anything?” whispered Cara, shielding her eyes.

“There are two... no, three people in there. They’re standing side by side, perfectly still, lined up against the back wall.”

I took a few steps closer, and Cara drew an arrow and fitted it to her light recurve bow. It felt good to know she had my back.

The overhanging roof of the shrine cast a cool shadow on the area of gravel directly in front of the entrance. As soon as I came under that shadow, I found that my vision of what was inside the shrine became clearer.

It was not a pleasant sight.

The three figures—a woman and two men—were suspended in the air with their backs to the rear wall. Their feet dangled above the ground, and their hands and arms hung limp at their sides. Around each one, black tentacles of Festering mist were weaving and playing, seeming to dip in and out of their chests, caressing their faces, and wrapping around their ankles, necks, and wrists. One of the figures was the yellow-robed man whom we’d seen being pulled into the shrine. He looked about fifty, with some gray hairs shot through his sleek black topknot and small pointed beard. The other two were older people with wrinkled, sun-darkened faces, and humbler clothing.

As we watched, the tentacles of the Festering thickened and darkened around the figures, taking their time as they explored their victims. For just a moment, a sudden awareness of the Festering flooded me, as if whatever effort it was making to shield itself from my senses had lapsed for a moment. The wave of dark energy caught me off-guard, flooding my senses, and in a horrible moment of awareness I realized what I was looking at.

“It’s feeding on them,” I breathed, and heard Cara’s sharp intake of breath beside me.

Suddenly, there was a crunching footstep on the gravel behind us. We both whirled, and Cara swung her bow up, but it was just a little old man, dressed in what looked like some kind of ceremonial robe. His robes had been a pure white, and must have been arranged in clean, sharp lines around his body, but now they were muddy and torn, and his face was bruised. As Cara raised her bow, with an arrow fitted, the little man held up both hands in a gesture of supplication. He was trembling.

I reached out and placed a hand on Cara’s arm, and she reluctantly lowered the bow.

“He has no signs of the influence of the Festering,” I said quietly to her. “I don’t think he’s a threat.”

“Please,” gasped the old man. “Please. You have to help me. In... in there...” he pointed one trembling finger toward the doorway of the temple.

“Yes, we’re here to help,” I said to him, and his face brightened with relief.

“Who are you?” asked Cara.

“I’m the priest of this Fox shrine,” he stammered. “The shrine is dedicated to the Kitsune, the fox-spirit of this land. I have been the priest here for ten years, and nothing like this has ever happened. Oh, please...”

“How long has this been happening?” Cara cut in over him.

“Oh, three days, maybe?” he said. “Three days ago I went to pay my morning respects to the Kitsune. Most of the time, the spirit does not appear, but I make my obeisance and light the incense anyway, and I leave out an offering of rice and milk. Sometimes, the Kitsune appears while I’m there, and I thought I’d been blessed with his presence three days ago. But it was... wrong. The Kitsune is white, fox-headed but with a body like a wreath of mist. This was not white. It was gray, and it had eyes that glowed. I fled. Then when Mr and Mrs Sato came from town yesterday, it... it took them. I tried to fight it, but it flung me back out of the shrine. Since then the fear that comes from the building has built, and I can barely approach it for the terror of the thing that’s taken over the shrine. An hour ago, I was in my house when I saw the man in yellow approaching. I tried to call out and warn him but I was too late.” He gestured toward the humble, grass-roofed building which we had observed earlier.

“Could you not go to the town for help?” asked Cara. The old man blinked twice, and looked at us as if we had both just sprouted extra heads.

“Uh, no,” he said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’m the priest of the shrine.” He looked insulted, and clearly felt he had explained himself fully. His fear had receded at the prospect of having others who might help him, and he crossed his arms on his chest and squinted at us. It was only then that I realized his vision must be poor.

“Where are you from?” he asked hesitantly. “You don’t look like you’re from Yamato...”

“Never mind where we’re from,” I said to him, glancing at Cara with a smile. “We’ll help you get your shrine back. Come on, Cara, let's fight the Festering.”

“But it’ll kill you like it killed those others! I didn’t mean you should fight the Kitsune! You should go to Otara and bring the guard! Don’t be craz...”

He choked on his words as I turned my intention to the Persona of Ironside. White-enamelled steel slammed into place around my chest and shoulders, and my one-handed axes appeared in my hands.

“Heaven help us!” cried the little man, stumbling backward.

“You don’t need heaven,” I said. “You have us.”

I felt my body lifted up and transformed by the power of the Persona. I was taller, broader, stronger, and every fibre of my being quivered with martial skill. The Helm of Ironside snapped into place around my head and around my face, leaving only my eyes uncovered. I hefted my axes, feeling like a giant of blade and steel.

“You should stay out of the way,” Cara advised the little guy. We turned and advanced toward the shrine.

The thing inside the little building became aware of me as soon as I put my steel-booted foot on the bottom step. I felt it push against my senses with a sudden rush, and I felt the powerful impression of its questioning enquiry. “Food?” it seemed to ask, and then when it realized my intent, it lashed away from me like a struck snake.

Cara was behind me, her bow at the ready. She let me lead, and I was glad enough of that. She was well-armed and highly skilled, but I was clad in the power of the Persona of Ironside; there was no question that I would be the one to take point in a fight.

The Festering sent a wave of terror and horror blasting through the doorway. It had given up all attempt to shield itself, and I saw the blast as a dense brown substance that came rushing from the open entrance. Despite my resistance to the terror it could inflict, I felt that blast is a physical impact. It was as if a solid wall of water had crashed into me.

I turned my shoulder into it and heard myself grunt with effort as I felt it break over me. Cara cried out in surprise behind me at the impact. The old priest screamed. I lifted my foot and gained the second step.

Fury thrummed like discordant music from inside the corrupted shrine. I felt like I was pushing against a thick, springy wall as I took a third step, then a fourth. I was on the platform, just outside the door. Then the Festering changed its tactic. It ceased to resist my advance. A wall of black tentacles suddenly rushed from the doorway, wrapped me in a wet embrace and dragged me in.

I spun to the right, slashing outward with both hand-axes. The tentacles had tried to unbalance me, but my leap foiled that attempt. I kept my footing, swinging left and and right at the black tentacles that clutched at me. They had seemed solid enough when they were dragging me through the entrance, but as soon as my axe connected with them, they dispersed into thin mist again, only to reform as soon as my blade had passed through them.

Glancing around the small space, I saw a glimpse of pale gray at the far back wall of the shrine. Something was there, a low, dog-like form, wreathed in mist. It was the Kitsune, the fox-spirit of the shrine, bound and corrupted by the Festering.

It hid behind the legs of the three people who still hung suspended against the back wall. The tentacles emanated from the cloud that enveloped it. From the middle of the cloud, two livid red eyes were peering around the legs of the man in yellow. The tentacles retreated from me, and in the moment of silence there was a snarling noise.

I glanced at the doorway to see what had become of Cara. The black mist solidified in the entranceway, forming an effective block against anyone wishing to enter. The only light was the faint daylight leaking in through the gaps between the top of the walls and the sloping roof. It looked as if I would have to deal with the creature on my own.

“Come on then,” I taunted it, “come out and fight me. I’ll destroy you, come on.”

“This is mine,” hissed a voice in return. “This place is mine, Kitsune is mine, and these, these are mine.” The three suspended people suddenly flopped about, as if a great hand were shaking them at me. “All this is mine, and if you stay here you will be mine too.”

I took a step toward the mist-shrouded spirit, intending to push past the suspended humans, but the Kitsune flung them at me. With a horrible, jerking motion, the two men and the woman suddenly moved toward me. Their hands raised toward me, and their eyes stared blankly forward. They were like marionettes being controlled from inside by some malevolent force.

This was unexpected. In the small space, the three made an effective wall between me and the Kitsune. I backed away, reluctant to just chop my way through them; they still looked very much alive, and I was certain that if I could defeat the Festering-corrupted Kitsune, these innocent victims could be saved. Behind me, the black wall in the entranceway remained solidly in place. From its place beyond them, the hissing voice laughed cruelly.

The older man suddenly raced three shambling steps forward. His mouth was momentarily wreathed in black mist, then it opened impossibly wide. A mass of writhing black tentacles burst from his gaping mouth and rushed toward me.

The shield. With a twist of my will, I summoned the shield upgrade I had purchased after the fight back in Saxe. The axe in my left hand was instantly transformed into a round shield of dark iron. I had a moment to notice that the shield was not of the same metal as the rest of my armor before the tentacles splattered against it with a horrible wet sound. They smashed against it and burst, sending wet gobbets of thick black liquid flying in every direction.

I felt a powerful sucking sensation against the shield, as if it were being pulled away from me, but I was stronger than that. With a wrench of brute strength, I got control of it again. I crouched, and with the shield held protectively over my head I barged past the prisoners. I knocked them out of the way, hopefully without damaging them too much.

Anger from the corrupted Kitsune washed over me again, but this time it was tinged with fear. All of a sudden, our positions had changed. It no longer had its human shields to hold between itself and me. Like the snapping of a tight cord, I almost felt it abandon its control over them as it drew all of its power back into itself.

I stole a rapid glance over my shoulder. The three civilians lay in a heap before the black wall which filled the doorway still. I snapped my head back around to face my enemy.

It still bore some resemblance to a fox, but everything about it was wrong. Instead of fur, it was covered in a bald, lumpy, pitted hide that shifted color between black, brown, and gray and wriggled as if it were infested with some kind of burrowing worm. Its legs were unnaturally bowed outward, and the feet had a mass of claws as big as my fingers. Its face was horrible, with a short, blunt snout and an oversized mouth full of a mass of blunt teeth. The eyes blazed wildly at me, but deep within them I caught a glimpse of something else; a tortured, helpless, noble soul. The soul of the Kitsune which had been bound by the evil.

The sight of that filled me with a sudden rage. As the creature reared up and prepared to charge me with tooth and claw, I barrelled into it at full force. It stood nearly as tall as my hip, and I slammed into it with my shield, sending it flying back against the wall. The whole shrine shook with the impact.

I leaped back, but instead of falling to the ground stunned, the creature grew larger. It sprang at me, claws extended and mouth wide, screeching like a woman. I bashed it with my shield, feeling the huge claws rake down the iron. It caught the edge of my shield in its mutated teeth, scrabbling for grip with its claws. Black tentacles exploded from its back, reaching around like great arms and engulfing my shield and my left arm.

Instead of trying to dislodge it with my axe, I twisted my body so that my shield and the creature were under me. Then I slammed the shield to the floor with my whole weight behind it, trying to crush the creature. It slid out just in time, scuttling away from me and toward the civilians and the black wall which still filled the entrance.

There was a crashing sound, and a section of the wall of the shrine furthest from the black-walled entrance suddenly caved in. Bright sunlight flooded the dark space. Cara stood in the gap, a humble woodsman’s splitting axe in her hands. She leaped through the gap, dropping the axe and reaching for her knives.

With speed like a striking snake, black tentacles lashed out from the Kitsune, smashing into Cara and sending her flying back through the gap. It clattered across the floor toward the gap in the wall, roaring with fury, but I leaped forward to intercept it. I dropped my shield and summoned my two-handed axe, swinging it at the Kitsune and smashing the head of the axe into the floor just behind the creature. The floorboards shattered, leaving a gaping hole in the floor.

The Kitsune turned to me and opened its hideous mouth wide to charge again. I braced for a blast of tentacles. Instead, like a spray of rain, a cloud of flying insects rushed out with the creature’s roar. They were as big as cockroaches, and they swarmed toward me. As they landed on my armor, they made a heavy clanking noise, like stones hitting metal.

The Kitsune retreated a few steps, eyeing me malevolently. For a moment, I paused in my attack. I was aware of a low buzzing noise that vibrated through my steel breastplate and through my helmet. The low, thrumming vibration ran right through my armor and into my skull. I glanced down at my armor and realized with horror that I was covered in the insects, and that each one had a long, saw-toothed proboscis that was drilling into my armor at hundreds of different points. At this rate, it would not take long for the insects to reach my flesh.

With a cry of disgust, I swept a flight of them from my breastplate, only to have them lift in a cloud and slam immediately back into place. The Kitsune opened its mouth wide with laughter and grew larger as its confidence grew.

“Now you will be food for the Festering,” the gloating voice hissed.

“Not yet,” I growled, lifting my axe. I circled the Kitsune, and it moved with me. I moved further into the shrine, toward the civilians, as if I was moving to shield them.

The creature’s whole attention was fixed on me. It had forgotten Cara, but I had not. Through the gap in the back wall, I could see that she had righted herself and taken up an archer’s crouch on the grass a little way off and was aiming an arrow straight through the gap. As the Kitsune turned to keep me in sight, it unwittingly placed its back to her through the gap in the wall.

“Now, Cara!” I roared.

Too late, the Kitsune realized its mistake. Cara’s arrow flew straight and true through the gap, drawing a thick trail of blue mist behind it. It slammed into the Kitsune’s side, and I knew at once that she had treated the arrow with the blue potion she’d created on the clifftop earlier that same morning; the potion to turn an enemy’s power against it.

As blue light suffused the Kitsune, the cloud of drilling insects lifted from my armor and landed in a black cloud on the corrupted creature. In the final roar of defeat, I heard not the sly voice of the Kitsune, but the roar of the Festering itself, like a million daemonic voices all screaming at once. The thing disappeared under the weight of the drilling insects, writhing in pain as a thousand tiny teeth tore into it.

I didn’t hesitate. I took two steps forward and brought my axe down to sever the creature’s head from its body. There was a sudden flash of white light, and the monstrous form with its horrible insect tormentors crumbled to a pile of fine gray ash. The black wall which had blocked the entrance vanished like a puff of black smoke, and a sudden fresh breeze from the sea swept through the little space. The pile of what had been the monster was swept up by the breeze and blown out of the shrine to disperse in the air.

All around me, I heard a sound like a person breathing a deep sigh of relief. As I raised my head, I found that I was no longer in the shrine. For a moment, I saw the whole scene as if from the outside. Cara had half risen from her crouch while I stood with my axe buried in the floor of the shrine. The little priest, frozen in time, wore a terrified expression while he peered over the low wall surrounding his house.

Then my awareness spun away, and everything had changed. I stood in a woodland glade at night. Fireflies danced above the long grass that washed around the knees of great knobbly trees. The sky was dark blue, dotted with stars. A new moon hung over low hills in the distance.

At first, I was confused, then I realized I had been transported to the spirit realm.

I breathed deep, smelling the fresh green smell of the deep forest. Away to my left, I caught a glimpse of something white, moving silent as mist through the trees. I knew what it would be. I turned toward it and watched with fascination as the Kitsune spirit wove its way through the trees toward me.

It moved through the air just below the lowest branches of the trees, a clean, white shape. The Kitsune’s head was shaped like that of a real fox, alert and sharp-featured, though it was pure white and a little larger than a regular fox. The body was like a comet’s tail of thick mist, with no sign of legs or tail. It moved through the air toward me with the grace of a seal through water, stopping at the edge of the clearing and regarding me with dark, intelligent eyes. After a moment, it spoke in a soft voice like the sound of wind in a tree’s leaves.

“You saved me from oblivion, Soul Binder. The Festering would have used me against the people and the land which are dearest to me. Through consuming me, it would have consumed them. You have saved me, and you have bound me to the service of your destiny. No longer shall I inhabit the Kitsune shrine. I am yours now, and my power passes to you.”

I opened my mouth to reply, but the whole scene shimmer and dissolved. There was a sound in my ears like a rushing wind, and suddenly my hand was on my axe again, and the axehead was buried in the wooden floor of the Kitsune’s empty shrine.

I wrenched my axe from the floor and slung it over my shoulder. As I did so, I felt the Renown from our last fight collecting in me, with that now-familiar feeling of satisfaction, like gold coins clinking solidly into a strongbox.

I was keen to test my new Kitsune Persona, but I paused as Cara approached the gap in the wall. I saw from her smile and her momentary pause that she had felt the increase in Renown too. Behind me, the civilians were stirring.

“Are they all right?” she asked me as she hopped through the gap into the shrine room.

I glanced at them. “They seem to be. I think the Festering used them like puppets, but I don’t think it had actually begun to corrupt them.”

I reached up and touched my helmet, intending to remove it and wipe my brow. To my satisfaction, the helmet vanished, but the rest of my armor stayed in place. So I could remove parts of the Ironside armor without removing the whole thing. That was good to know.

“Let’s get these three out into the open air,” I suggested.

“Good idea,” Cara said.

Together, we carried the man in yellow and the elderly couple out into the sun and laid them on the grass. I was pleased to see that, although they were unconscious, they seemed unharmed. Cara knelt by them and began to check them over for injuries, and I turned away to walk over to the priest.

The old fellow was peering short-sightedly at me as I approached. To him, I must have looked like a giant. My weapons and my new shield were on my back, and my armor gleamed in the sun. He leaned on the wall, his arms crossed on his chest, looking bemusedly up at me as I stopped before him.

We looked at each other in silence for a moment.

“You seem displeased,” I said, stating the obvious. “Were you harmed in the battle?”

“I was not the one who was harmed,” he snapped, his tone accusatory. “Tell me, foreigner, what has happened to the fox-spirit?”

I bit back my anger at his total lack of gratitude. I had just gone to great lengths to help him. Well, maybe he was frightened and this was how he dealt with that. I remembered what the Keeper had said about the differences between this world and Saxe, and decided to try to be patient with him.

“The Kitsune has been bound to me now,” I explained gently. “I drove the evil influence away, and in return, the fox-spirit’s power has passed to me.”

“Bound... to you?” the old man cried, outraged. “To you? But that means it will not come back to the shrine? Impossible!”

I spread my hands in a gesture of supplication to the old fellow. “I’m afraid it’s true. I guess that means you’re out of a job?”

“It’s heresy even to suggest such a thing!” the old man scolded. “Look, look, I will prove it to you. Watch!”

He turned on his heel and marched away toward the perimeter of the mowed grassy area. The little red rope-fence marked the boundary of the area under his care. He glared defiantly in my direction, and then stepped over the boundary.

“It cannot be!” he gasped. He took a few more steps away from the rope fence, then looked back toward me. The defiance was gone from his face, and instead he looked angry and betrayed. He leveled one bony finger in my direction and shouted back to me from the perimeter. “You have broken the Kitsune shrine! You’ll live to regret this, whoever you are! Just you wait! You’ll see! I won’t forget this insult!”

With that, he spun on his heel and marched off, head held high, anger in every line of his stance.

“There’s just no pleasing some people,” I said with a shrug.

I turned and made my way back across the grassy sward toward Cara and the folk we’d rescued from the Kitsune. The Persona that had been granted to me by the Kitsune hovered at the edge of my awareness. I was eager to test it out.

The three civilians—the two oldsters in purple and the middle-aged man in yellow—looked as if they might be coming around as I approached. I drew a breath to call out to Cara, who was leaning over them, but just as I was about to ask if they were all right, there came a sound from away off to my left. It was the sound of a twig snapping, off in the direction of a large clump of bushes near the edge of the cliff.

Whirling, I heard another sound—a whispering chatter of high-pitched laughter from the direction of a dense clump of trees which loomed over the edge of the shrine.

“What is that sound?” I heard Cara saying breathlessly. She stood quickly, her hand on her bow again, ready to fight. She put her back to the civilians, who were stirring but not yet fully awake. They could not defend themselves, and we needed to be ready to protect them from attack.

I scanned the whole area, turning my head trying to look everywhere at once, but I saw nothing. Then, as suddenly as lightning can break from a stormy sky, the dell around the shrine was filled with running figures.

They came from the bushes, from under the floor of the shrine, from the cover of the trees nearby. They came from every direction, small, squat figures with short, thick legs and broad, swarthy bodies. Their faces were flat, and seemed curiously deformed to my eyes. There was a suggestion of feathers about their hair, and they had long noses, unnaturally long, and protruding, oversized teeth. They were dressed in furs and leathers, and they were all armed, some with long knives, some with vicious-looking hammers, and several with short recurve bows similar to Cara’s but of less quality and with less finish.

They were like some hellborn amalgamation between bird and man. There was no question that the Festering had afflicted them.

A moment ago, I had been pleased with my progress, having defeated the Kitsune and freed the captives. The next, I was outnumbered and completely surrounded in the little dell, and my back was to the cliffs.

A glance in Cara’s direction showed me the man in yellow sitting up on the ground, looking around himself blearily. He pointed in horror at the creatures that surrounded us.

“Tengu!” he cried. “The Tengu have come! They are merciless!”

“Merciless?” I muttered, “Well, so am I.”

It was time to try my new Persona. The Ironside armor was heavy and hot for a battle like this, and I had a feeling that whatever powers came with the Kitsune Persona might be better suited to moving quickly in the humid heat of Yamato.

“They have killed the master!” screamed one of the Tengu in a high, wavering voice. The others all broke into wild jabbering battle cries, menacing us with their weapons.

I reached for the Kitsune Persona, and it enveloped me. I was expecting a familiar sensation of warmth, but instead of heat, there was a cool sensation, like plunging through water on a hot day. I looked down at myself. Where before I had been dressed in heavy white battle armor, I found myself now wearing a suit of black robes, fitted tightly around my hips and chest. A band of black fabric was wrapped around my head, covering most of my face except for my eyes. I looked at my hands; black gloves of skintight fine leather. My feet were covered in high, supple leather boots, laced off at the shins to just below my knee.

“Weapons?” I asked out loud as I glanced down at my belt to see what this Persona had armed me with. There was a long belt of black leather, and the Persona gave me full knowledge of everything that was contained in it. It was heavy with many different kinds of weapons; small knives that could fit in between a man's knuckles to make a punch into a deadly blow, or that could be driven in between the vertebrae for a covert assassination. There were potions and powders, blinding poisons and deadly plant extracts that could be slipped into food. In one pocket there was a set of garroting tools, in another, a blowpipe and thorns that could be treated with poison.

So, the Persona of an assassin. Very good, but as far as I could see, there was nothing I could use immediately in close combat such as I was about to face. “Nothing bigger?” I said. The Persona seemed to answer for itself, guiding my attention toward my upper body.

On a long sash of dark fabric which was hung around my chest and over my shoulder, there were many little star–shaped throwing disks. They were flat, with three bladed points, one on each edge. The Persona gave me the knowledge of not only what they were, but also how to use them. These were Shuriken stars, and with a pass of my hand along the length of the sash I found that three jumped onto my palm with ease.

The Tengu continued to dance about at the edge of the ring they had created, but they did not seem immediately inclined to attack. I stared around at the ring of enemies, my throwing stars poised in my hand, when I heard a thumping noise coming from the direction of the woods. The Tengu stopped their battle cries and looked in the direction of the approaching noise. The thumping got closer, and was accompanied now by the sound of smashing wood, as if something big was breaking through the trees.

Suddenly, a huge troll crashed through the tree cover away off to the right of the shrine. He was three times as high as the Tengu warriors, and he was wearing nothing except a great dirty rag slung around his loins.

He carried a huge stone club, as big as a small tree, with a massive, misshapen head and crude leather strapping wrapped around the base to make a handle. The Tengu all drew away from the troll, opening up a space for him to enter the ring.

As he lumbered past them, he roared gutturally, and all of the smaller creatures replied, jumping up and down and beginning their screeching again. Cara gave a great shout and fired an arrow high up into the air. She had a second one flying through the air before the first had landed. Then the third was flying. The first crashed to the ground amongst the Tengu and exploded with a blast of dirty orange flame and black smoke. The second arrow thudded into the shoulder of the great troll, where it exploded into flame.

The troll roared again and batted at his head and his shoulder with his free hand to put out the flames, but there was something in the fire which made it stick to his hands, and instead of putting it out he unintentionally spread it to other parts of his body. As thick black smoke from the fires on the ground and on the troll spread through the shrine garden, the troll let out a roar of pain and anger.

Glancing around the scene, it was clear that though the troll was bigger, much bigger than the Tengu, it was the smaller creatures who had the greater intelligence. They pushed the infuriated troll forward.

Tormented by the flames which stung his face and burned around his shoulders and chest, the troll charged blindly forward, trailing flames and thick, acrid smoke, and crashed straight into the wall of the shrine building. Flames licked greedily up the wooden structure as it shuddered under his impact. He was entangled with it and flailed around with his giant club, smashing chunks off of the building as he tried to free himself from it.

Behind him, the Tengu all pressed forward, then withdrew like a wave.

"Let's deal with the Tengu while the troll is busy!" I shouted to Cara. She gave me a tight nod.

I flung the handful of three throwing stars. As they left my hand I felt the magic of this Persona rush through me. Instead of being only three deadly sharp Shuriken stars, the projectiles transformed in midair. Three became six, then nine, then twelve. They gained speed, and when they thudded into the faces of the front rank of Tengu, they had multiplied several times over. At least ten of the ugly creatures fell backward screaming, the dark blood squirting from the terrible wounds in their faces.

The troll seemed unaware of what was going on behind him. I flung another three stars, and again they multiplied, bringing down another ten of the Tengu as another volley of arrows from Cara crashed into their ranks, each one making a bigger explosion than the last.

Behind me, I heard the ring of metal on metal as Cara drew her two long knives. For a moment, I considered returning to the Persona of Ironside for the melee, but then the Kitsune Persona reached out and guided my senses toward an ability I had not realized that I had.

I extended my hand. In it, there appeared a short, curved, minimalist blade which I knew instinctively was called a Tanto. Unlike the swords I was used to seeing in Saxe, this blade had no wrist guard, and it was only about as long as my forearm from end to end. It was a stealth weapon, a fast weapon. The battle weapon of the assassin.

I charged the Tengu, and as I did so I used my left hand to fling two more handfuls of the throwing stars into the heaving mass of enemies. They cut a bloody swath through the packed Tengu, who retreated a little way. I leaped into the gap and set about with the Tanto.

Behind me, I heard smashing and bellowing as the troll tried to free himself from the shrine building. A quick slash to left and right dropped one Tengu and then another to the ground. The blade was incredibly sharp, and it sheared through the flesh of my enemies with barely any effort.

I moved to the left, shouldering the dying Tengu into his fellows, where he fell and got entangled in his comrades’ feet. A glance to my right showed me Cara spinning like a dervish with a blade in each hand. The Tengu were falling like leaves around her. One of them charged me with a great big two-handed hammer raised up above his head. He brought it down to smash me, and again that sense of being guided by the Persona moved me to lift my left hand and then bring it down again sharply toward my belly in a stylized motion. The world shifted.

It was as if I had ceased to exist in one place, and had reappeared in another, five feet to the left of where I had just been. Where I had been standing a moment before, there was a cloud of white mist, humanoid for a moment, but insubstantial as smoke. The Tengu’s hammer stroke smashed through the cloud of mist and thudded into the ground. As the Tengu tried to pull the hammer out of the ground, I leapt at him and cut his throat with a sidestroke of my Tanto blade.

I charged forward, swinging again and again, back and forth with my blade, parrying and dodging blows. I found to my delight that I could move with lightning quickness; it almost seemed as if they couldn't see me, as if I moved too quickly for their eyes. Time and time again I used the remarkable ability to shift myself through space. I would lunge to the right, shift, and appear five feet away, behind the enemies who had been about to attack me.

I had no compunction about attacking them from behind. Back in Saxe a warrior was expected to face his enemy head on. It was not just the fact that these were not honorable men, but some kind of nasty woodland monster; it was also the fact that the stealthy assassin Persona gave me permission to use fighting techniques which otherwise I would have thought were too dishonorable to use.

Cara and I had fought off fully half of the horde of Tengu when the troll finally managed to get free from his entanglement in the shrine building. He didn't exactly free himself; rather, he stopped trying to pull himself loose and instead just hauled the whole remainder of the building’s frame up off the ground. The wooden timbers were smoldering, and floorboards and bits of tiling dangled and fell from him as he rose up with the wrecked building around his neck. He seemed half blinded, and was covered in terrible burns. The whole wooden framing of what had once been the fox spirit’s shrine hung around his neck like some bizarre battle harness.

I almost laughed at the sight, but that was when the Festering began to take hold. The Tengu were fleeing, screeching and backing away from Cara’s fierce face and bloody blades as she and I stood together surrounded by a mound of the enemy dead.

Without warning, the troll transformed. He had been ugly enough to begin with, but now he sprouted tentacles from around his head and shoulders. Spikes burst through the skin of his arms, back, and shoulders, and out from his chest. His head expanded, the jaw lengthening and his few blunt teeth multiplying and becoming razor sharp.

“There must be some kind of lingering influence of the Festering within this glade,” I shouted to Cara. “It’s taken the troll!”

The remaining Tengu turned and fled screaming into the woods as the troll gave a horrible howl of pain and doubled over, dropping his club. His head exploded into a mass of writhing tentacles and he dropped onto all fours. Then, with the tentacles outstretched, he began charging toward us like some huge, deformed dog.

Cara aimed an exploding arrow and fired right into the writhing mass of tentacles where the head had been. Sudden fire engulfed the creature’s tentacles and shoulders, but it did not stop charging. The monster had doubled in size, and now bore almost no resemblance to a troll; instead, it was a mess of spikes and wriggling tentacles, dripping black slime and pouring flame. I did not fancy Cara’s chances against it if it got too close, and it was lumbering forward, closing distance every second.

There was only one thing for it. “Get back,” I shouted to Cara. “I'm going to try something creative.”

“This better work,” I muttered to myself as Cara obeyed my command and got out of the way.

I crouched onto one knee and sprinted toward the charging monster. The fox spirit Persona gave me incredible speed, and I sprinted forward faster than I would ever have thought possible. Right at the last moment, as the tentacles reached out to grab me, I leapt into the air with as much force as I could muster. It was no ordinary jump. I blasted fifteen feet into the air. Time seemed to slow down. From behind me, I heard Cara’s amazed shout as I flew up into the air. As I felt my jump hit its apex, I pulled out my last trick.

I reached for the Persona of Ironside.

Heat flooded me as the massive suit of armor slammed into place around me. I felt my heart racing as the speed of my descent increased with the extra weight. My huge two-handed axe was in my grip and I raised it for a killing blow as I fell. I landed on the creature’s back with incredible momentum, whirling my axe over my head and into the monster’s spine with all the force of my swing and all the weight of the huge armor. The bladed head of the axe slammed into the flesh. The tentacles battered at me, thumping on my armor, and the huge spikes which had burst from the creature’s skin smashed against the chest plate and my gauntlets, but the spikes broke and snapped off as I landed on them. They were no match for the armor of Ironside.

The force of my axe blow was so powerful that it nearly cut the mutant troll in two. I slid from the creature’s back as gouts of blood erupted into the air and splashed steaming on my armor. I was dragging my axe out of the wound and smashing the spikes and tentacles away from me as I fell. Suddenly, the tentacles grabbed me, wrapped me, and drew me toward the place where the face had been. From within the mass of rising tentacles a huge, toothy mouth suddenly exploded, opening wide to receive me. I reached up, dropping my two-handed axe and grabbing my twinned one-handers, slashing from side to side with both hands at the tentacles as they drew me toward that horrible mouth. The tentacles which I hit dropped away, but new ones appeared for every one I cut.

Time for a change of tactic. I reached for my Kitsune Persona and immediately experienced a cool wash of sensation over my body as the enormous Ironside armor shimmered and disappeared, replaced by the tight-fitting garb of the assassin. The tentacles lost their grip for a moment as I changed size, and that was all it took. I shifted through space, leaving the monster holding nothing but a puff of white smoke.

I landed on my feet, and now I rose slowly, looking at the wreck of the monster. Cara came over to stand beside me. The monster was dying. My two-handed axe had nearly destroyed it, severing the spine. It had lost all coordination in its limbs, and it lay in the middle of the green space, flopping and spasming horribly. I stepped toward it, thinking I would have to finish it, but at that moment a cloud of black mist lifted from the carcass of the hideous creature and the mutated troll stopped moving and lay still.

From the black mist there came the voice, the terrible, multitudinous voice of the Festering, ringing through the peaceful dale.

“Soul Binder,” it roared. “Soul Binder! You have conquered this time, but you shall not conquer for much longer. This land is mine, and you will learn it or you will die!”

The black mist was caught by a brisk breeze blowing in with the smell of the sea riding on it. With a last cry of pain and thwarted anger, the black mist that was all that remained of the Festering was swept away.

I heard Cara cry out with surprise and delight.

“You felt it too,” I said to Cara. “The Renown flowing into us from the battle.”

“Yes,” she said. “But I don’t have anything to spend mine on yet.”

But I did.

With a sudden rush, I realized that I was ready to level up my Persona again. As had happened before, there was a flash of light around me, and a far off boom like the sound of thunder. My power had increased another level.

“Look, Cara,” I said. “Here’s the options for the upgrades.”

We watched in awe as the air shimmered in front of us, images appearing like glinting models of the Personas I had acquired so far.

I reached up to my head. I was still wearing the Shinobi outfit, with the black cloth wrapped around my head and covering all of my face except my eyes. Now, I turned my attention to the headgear. I willed it to be gone, and it was. Now I could concentrate better on what we were about to do.

In front of me, I was presented with an image of the night black assassin’s garb which had come from the Kitsune Persona. That was on the left, and the armor of Ironside was upon the right. Above them both, there was what looked like a thick glass tube, tall and broad. It was filled to the brim with a glimmering light.

With slowly dawning excitement, I realized that the tall glass column and the light within it represented my Renown; it was full, and that was how much Renown I had earned to spend on upgrades.

I explained it to Cara.

“You must be right,” she said excitedly. “Which one will you look at first?”

“The Kitsune Persona,” I said. “Because I’ve already upgraded the Ironside Persona once.”

“I wonder how many upgrades you can get?”

“Let’s find out.”

I reached out and touched the assassin robes first. By moving my hand, I could rotate the image as if it really was a miniature model of the robes. I tapped it, and it expanded and disappeared, revealing three other options. On the left was an image of a black-robed figure running, in the middle two crossed tanto daggers, and on the right was a shuriken star.

I moved my hand back and forth in front of these images, and in the intuitive way which I was becoming used to with the Personas, I knew what each upgrade would do.

“This one,” I said to Cara, indicating the running figure, “represents the power of speed that comes with the Kitsune Persona. Spending my Renown points on this will upgrade my ability to move quickly in battle when I’m wearing this Persona. In the middle, the tanto upgrade will give me not only a better blade, but also the ability to dual wield with a tanto in each hand. On the right...” I trailed off. Looking at the Shuriken, I felt something particularly special.

“What about the Shuriken?” Cara asked eagerly. “What does that upgrade do?”

I hovered my hand over the shuriken star, feeling a slow rush of excitement building in me. “It’s something more. With this one, I feel that I’m being offered the opportunity to add elemental magic to my Shuriken stars.”

“Elemental magic?”

“Yes. I feel that there are three options: fire, ice, and air. The fire is producing a heat sensation, the ice a chill, and the air a tickling on my skin. This is. . . this is incredible, Cara.”

“It certainly is,” she replied. “Can you feel anything else? Do you know what they might do?”

“The magic is very intuitive; I get explanations almost as necessary. Let me see if I can discern their purposes by examining them more closely.”

I took a breath, and examined each in turn. The air option would cause the throwing stars to travel further and faster, and multiply more in-flight. The fire option would cause the stars to burn their target when they hit, and the ice option would freeze low powered enemies where they stood.

Each seemed a worthwhile upgrade.

Cara was watching with interest, and she nodded as I explained it to her. “Which one will you pick?” she asked, once I had finished speaking. “I’d go for fire. Burning shuriken stars would be incredibly powerful, but the air option where the stars multiply even further could be useful too.”

I thought for a moment. “Don’t forget the ice option,” I said. “You already have a powerful fire ability with your potion-treated arrows, and the shuriken’s ability to multiply in midair is already pretty powerful. I’m not sure we need to double-down on abilities we already have access to. If I pick the ice upgrade, it will add something totally new to our combined skill set.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” Cara said.

“I think that’s the option I’ll take.”

I reached out and touched my hand to the image of the throwing star. It vanished, to be replaced by three symbols. They were simple images, but it was clear that they represented the three elemental options. I touched the stylized ice image, and immediately I felt the upgrade take effect. It was like a shiver running through the Persona I was wearing. When I reached up to touch the throwing stars held in my shoulder belt, I felt a hint of cold from the metal.

The three elemental images disappeared, to be replaced by the Ironside and the Kitsune Persona options again. On the left, there was the black assassin suit, and on the right, again, the armor of Ironside. This time, however, there were two differences. First, I noticed that the black assassin’s suit had a little ice symbol next to it. Second, I saw that the tall glass column containing my Renown was now half empty, where before it had been full.

“What does it mean?” said Cara, looking on in fascination.

“I think it means that I still have enough Renown to add another upgrade to one of my Personas. I’ve only spent half.”

“Will you upgrade the new Persona again? I wonder what would happen if you added another elemental damage type to your shuriken stars—could you combine the elemental damage types?”

“Maybe,” I said thoughtfully, “but I think I’ll look at what’s available for the Ironside Persona this time. I suspect that we’ll be gaining a lot of upgrades as our quest progresses, and it makes sense to me that I should balance my upgrades between my Personas.”

“I can understand that,” Cara said. “Though I think if it were me I’d be more inclined to specialize in one particular Persona.”

I nodded to that. “Yes, I can see how that’s an appealing prospect. I’m tempted to spend all my upgrades on the new Persona as well. But we don’t know what kind of enemies we’re going to face. If we put all the upgrades into, say, elemental damage, we might be in trouble if we came across an enemy who was resistant to the elements. So far, we’ve had to fight monsters, but we may have to fight men at some point too, or other monsters with abilities which we can’t imagine yet. Since we don’t know what we’re going to face, I’m going to take the approach of spreading my abilities out between the different Personas.”

“The Kitsune Persona and the Ironside Persona are so different,” Cara said. “You’re right; it makes sense to upgrade both equally, and to be able to use both. Go on,” she urged, “let’s find out what’s available for the Ironside Persona then.”

I smiled at her. Her eyes were shining. It was good to know that she was as excited about seeing what upgrades we could get as I was.

In the same way as before, they expanded and disappeared like a bubble popping. It vanished smoothly, to be replaced by three images representing the areas I could upgrade. As I had seen in Saxe when I had first upgraded the Ironside Persona, there was a shield on the left, a bright green gemstone in the middle, and an axe on the right.

I held my hand over all three in turn.

“What do these ones mean?” asked Cara.

For a moment, it wasn’t clear, but as I turned my attention to each one, I understood. I knew that picking the shield, which I had upgraded previously, would give me the power to wield a great iron shield in battle, and increased strength to block enemy attacks.

When I held my hand over the axe image, I was again presented with the option of adding elemental damage to my weapon.

Then I held my hand over the gemstone.

“This is interesting,” I said to Cara. “The shield and the axe are straightforward upgrades to parts of my kit, with the option of adding elemental damage to the weapon, but this gemstone... if I understand it correctly, it will allow me to draw extra Renown from enemies that I kill while wearing this Persona.”

“That’s unexpected,” Cara said. “It would be great to have an axe that did fire or ice damage, and blocking powerfully with your shield is useful too, but in the long term being able to gain more Renown could be the most useful of all.”

“In the long term,” I mused. “Yes, I think that’s right. We’re here for the long haul. There’s going to be many options and chances to upgrade the Personas. The quicker we can earn Renown and apply the upgrades to the Personas, the more power and options we will have in battle.”

“And after all,” Cara added, “we should apply the same principle to this choice as you did when choosing an elemental effect for the assassin suit—get the upgrade that gives you something you don’t already have.”

“Yes, I think you’re right. We already have an ice weapon in the throwing stars and a fire weapon in your bow. The increased capacity to draw Renown from conquered enemies is the best choice.”

I held my hand over the gemstone upgrade, then tapped it with my palm. It spun and shone out brightly, and again I felt that pleasant, satisfying shudder as the upgrade took effect.

Light flickered across my body, from my hands, up my arms, then down to my boots. When the image of the gemstone and the other two upgrade options faded, it was replaced by the Ironside suit and the Kitsune robes again. They hovered in front of me, but this time there was another difference.

“Look at the glass that holds my supply of Renown,” I said.

She leaned in to look closer. “It’s changed!”

It was empty now, but it was wider than it had been before, as if it would now hold more Renown than previously. Also, it now had some fancy scrollwork around the base and the top—sinuous shapes like twining dragons adorned each end of it. I reached out to touch it.

As my hand hovered over it, the image faded. This time, instead of showing me options, it showed me something new entirely.

“What’s this?” said Cara, sounding surprised. It was an image of the troll we had killed. He was as he had been initially, untainted by the Festering.

Curious, I held my hand over the troll image. The intuition—which I was coming to realize was the special power of the Soul Binder—told me something very simple. This was a bonus. The troll was physically incredibly strong and had great endurance. Having killed him allowed me to bind his qualities directly to myself, rather than to any of my Personas. They would apply to me no matter what Persona I was wearing.

I smiled, explaining it to Cara. “The troll was not wicked or evil on his own account. I think the Tengu forced him to fight, and then the Festering took him. It was the Festering we killed, not the troll itself. Trolls are stupid, and can be cruel, but they are not intentionally evil. I’ll gladly accept the bonus that comes from his strength. It will be a useful upgrade in any situation.”

I reached out and laid my hand on the image of the troll.

This time, the shudder and rush of the upgrade hit me somewhere deep inside myself. I realized that the former upgrades had moved into the Personas, as if they were a skin I wore. This upgrade went straight into my heart. Cara was watching me with wide eyes and an admiring smile on her face.

Energy and strength surged through me. The extra strength was immediately taking effect, and I felt like I could've fought ten trolls single-handedly just at that moment. I felt taller, broader, stronger, and even more confident and virile than I had before.

“How do you feel?” asked Cara.

“I feel amazing,” I said, smiling. “I can't wait to be able to share the Personas with you; it's a really powerful feeling.”

“Me too,” she replied fervently.

“Don’t worry,” I said comfortingly, and reached a hand out to place it on her shoulder. “We’ll get there. I have a feeling it won’t be long until we can share Personas.”

The upgrade diagram faded from sight, and we looked around the dale again. We looked first at the civilians we had rescued. All three were sleeping soundly. Cara went over and examined them, then came back.

“Let’s let them sleep,” she said. “They seem to be sleeping naturally rather than suffering any kind of ill effect from their experience. It’s early in the day yet, and my instinct tells me that they will be better if we let them sleep it off for as much time as they need.”

“You’re the healer,” I said. “If you think that’s what’s best, that’s what we’ll do.”

I was keen to try out the upgrades to the Personas. “We can’t just abandon them, though. We’ll need to wait until they wake up. Shall we use the time to see what these new Persona upgrades can do?”

Cara smiled. “Good idea. I was actually just going to suggest that.”

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go over toward the woods.”

“Shall we start with the ice shuriken?” Cara asked. She seemed eager to see the new effects I had obtained. I was pleased to note that there was no jealousy in her attitude. She wanted to learn to use the Personas for herself, but she didn’t resent me for having something she hadn’t achieved yet.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll start by just throwing a few and seeing what happens.”

We walked away from the smoking battlefield until we reached the tree line. I was still wearing the Kitsune Persona, and when Cara stood out of the way, I reached for the shuriken belt and felt three stars slip onto my palm.

“Ready?” I asked Cara.

“Ready,” she replied eagerly.

I flung the stars toward a tree. As before, three became six, then nine, and then there was a rattle of thudding impacts as they hit the tree. There was a loud crackling that reminded me of the sound of walking on packed ice in the northern mountains of Saxe, and a thick coat of ice spread out from where the stars had hit. It rushed out across the bark of the tree, covering the trunk in a spreading coat of glistening white. Then it ran rapidly up the branches and coated the leaves in frost. It only took a very short space of time for every surface of the tree to be covered in a thick coating of ice.

We both looked at it in amazement.

“How many stars do you have?” Cara asked.

I felt the outside of the sash that held them. “That’s another remarkable thing,” I said. “They don’t seem to run out when I use them. Look.”

I reached up and drew my hand across the belt, another three appeared. I did again, and now I was holding six. “I think I could go on and on, there doesn’t seem to be any difference.”

“And can you choose whether they use the ice magic or not?”

“Good question—let’s find out.”

I focused on the shuriken stars in my hands. An idea struck me. I lifted my left hand to my star belt and moved it across, once, then a second time. Now, I was holding six stars in my left hand and six in my right. Still, there seemed no change in the weight of the belt that held them.

With an effort of will, I brought my attention first to the stars in the left hand, then to my right. I felt the ice damage within the shuriken stars, ready to take effect, but not awaiting my input before doing so.

“I didn’t realize before,” I said to Cara. “The elemental damage is there to be used, but it’s not the default. Let’s see...”

I let the ice take effect on the stars in my left hand, but not the ones in the right. It was working... for a moment. Then the magic wavered and fell apart.

“That’s strange,” I muttered, “it’s not working.”

I tried again. And again. No matter how hard I tried, I could not bring the ice magic into only the stars in one hand but not the other. Either both hands took on the ice magic, or neither did.

“Well, at least you can choose to freeze or not for each new flight, just not when throwing double-handed.”

“It’s true,” I said, still feeling a bit disappointed, “but I’d like to be able to control the magic with more detail than that.”

I let the ice take effect on both handfuls of stars, then flung all the stars toward the already frozen tree. The result was impressive—I was holding six in each hand, twelve in total. The stars multiplied, then multiplied again, until a flight of nearly forty shuriken stars, all trailing hissing ice tails like many little comets, smashed in a mass into the tree. The ice expanded, coating the tree again and again until there was nothing but a formless lump of ice where the tree had been.

Cara whistled. “That would have been useful when you were fighting the troll.”

“It would have been, but I think it might be harder to immobilize a moving creature, particularly something so big as a troll.”

“I’m going to try something,” Cara said. “I want to see what effect an exploding arrow has on the ice.”

She pulled an arrow from her quiver and treated it with some liquid from a bottle at her belt, her actions lightning fast. Then she drew and released in one smooth motion, and the arrow flew toward the tree, trailing fire. It slammed into the thickly-layered ice, slicing through it and penetrating deep into the core. There was a thundering explosion, and the whole thing blasted to pieces. Chunks of ice and massive splinters of flaming wood flew everywhere, pattering down all around us like deadly rain.

“That was impressive,” I said.

Cara smiled at the compliment. “It seems that the presence of the ice makes my arrows more powerful. I would never normally expect an explosion as big as that.”

“Good! That’s new. Let’s try again—do you have enough arrows?”

She pulled her quiver around and checked. “Yes, I have enough to experiment with. Some of the Tengu had bows about the same size as mine. Their arrows would work for me. I can resupply from those arrows later on.”

“All right,” I said, drawing just one shuriken out from the shoulder sash. “I’ll throw this at the ground over there and we’ll see how it works.”

“Ready,” Cara said, nocking a treated arrow to her bow.

I flung the shuriken at a bare patch of earth just beyond the tree line. It trailed ice as it multiplied to three stars that hurtled through the air then struck the earth and stuck, sending a broad patch of ice blasting out in every direction across the brown dirt. There was a twang as Cara released her arrow.

The results were impressive.

When her arrow hit the ice patch, it exploded with massive force, blasting earth and stone in every direction. There was a loud boom, and earth pattered down all around us. The explosion left a cloud of black smoke. As that cleared, we saw that a ragged pit had been blasted out of the earth. Though a lot of earth had flown up into the air and been scattered, most of the dirt had simply been thrown to one side, where it lay in a relatively neat pile, like sand that had been kicked by a giant foot. The pit was not huge, perhaps three feet deep and six feet across, but it was a large amount of earth to have moved with one attack.

“That’s a lot of force!” Cara exclaimed. “We’ll need to remember that next time we face enemies in battle.”

It was true, but it had given me another idea too, an idea that would let me try out the extra strength that I had added from the troll upgrade. I glanced over at the wreck of the shrine.

“We’ve made a bit of a mess over there,” I said to Cara. “Why don’t we tidy up a bit?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, looking puzzled.

“Prepare another arrow. I’ve got an idea.”

When she was ready, I pulled three stars out and hurled them into the shallow pit. This time, since there were more stars, the ice patch was thicker and more impressive. It half filled the pit.

Cara fired her arrow into the ice, and again there was a thunderous explosion and a lot of earth was blasted onto the ground. The pit was much deeper now, easily twelve feet deep and eight across.

“Now what?” asked Cara.

“Now I test my troll-strength upgrade.”

She followed me back over to the battlefield, understanding dawning on her face as she did so. When I got in amongst the dead Tengu, she retrieved a few of their arrow-quivers from their shoulders and pulled them to one side to remove the arrows.

Wordlessly, I hauled the dead Tengu over and stacked them one on top of the other. They were small creatures, and I would not have had too much trouble carrying them normally. Now, however, I found I was able to lift them as if they were made of empty sacking.

Cara watched, her eyes wide, as I picked up seven of them at once and walked steadily over to the pit. I returned and took ten over this time, five in the crook of each arm. Two more trips, and there were no more dead Tengu on the battlefield—they all lay next to the pit we had dug with our magic. I turned to the enormous body of the troll.

When the Festering had worn off, the troll had returned to his normal shape. He was headless now, but his body, at least four times the size of mine, lay peacefully, still clutching his gigantic stone club. I took a breath, rolled my shoulders and approached him.

“Surely he’s too heavy,” Cara said, and I could hear the challenge in her tone.

“You don’t think I can do it?”

“I think you could, but we wouldn’t want you straining a muscle. We have a long quest ahead of us, you know.”

“I won’t be straining anything,” I said, although I couldn’t help feeling a little unsure as I looked down at the massive creature.

I crouched and put my arms under the great carcass of the monster. Then, with an effort, I hefted it upward and stood. To my surprise, and to Cara’s delighted amazement, the enormous dead weight of the slain troll came up from the ground. It was heavy, certainly, but it didn't feel heavier than lifting another man would've been.

Carefully, I walked over to the pit, and tipped him in. Then, with no more effort than I would've had to expend if I was lifting rocks, I pushed all of the Tengu in as well. The pile of dirt we had blasted from the hole sat next to the edge of the pit. Using a plank which remained from the wreckage of the shrine, I pushed the whole pile into the pit. It took a little bit of doing, but soon all that remained of the hole was a mound of freshly turned earth.

I dusted off my hands.

“This Persona’s clothing is good for fighting, but it’s a little tight for this kind of work. I wonder if it has another aspect, the way the Ironside Persona does?” As I spoke, I reached for the Shinobi Persona, looking for a non-combat aspect which went alongside the Shinobi robes. Immediately, the Persona responded. There was a cool feeling, like stepping through a curtain of falling water. When I looked down, I was dressed in beautiful robes of charcoal gray, cinched at the waist with a belt of brown leather.

In style, they reminded me of the robes which the man in yellow had worn, yet they were of a better weave. I held my arms out and turned slowly, displaying the new outfit for Cara.

“Show me the footwear,” she asked, laughing. I lifted the loose trousers to display my feet, clad in high brown boots of supple leather.

“That’s good,” she said. “It suits you, but I’m not sure I’ll want to wear that when we work out how to share Personas.”

She spoke lightly, but I frowned. “I don’t think it works that way. I think... it’s not entirely clear to me but I think... I’m almost certain that if you take on a Persona, it will manifest differently, suiting your character, as it were.”

Cara took a breath to speak, but she was interrupted by a voice from away toward the wreck of the shrine.

“Well,” the voice said, “you are by far the most remarkable warriors I have ever seen.”

Cara and I both turned and looked to see who had spoken. The yellow-clad man we had rescued from the Festering was crouching beside the old man and the old woman, the two others who had been afflicted by the evil force. The man in yellow was a wiry fellow in his mid 50s, broad across the chest and shoulders but shorter in height than me or Cara. Gray peppered his black hair and beard.

Now, he rose stiffly and bowed low before me. To my eyes, this was not a normal gesture; no person bowed to another in Saxe, for it was the lowest gesture of subjugation. I bit back my protest, however, recalling the difference between our cultures.

I am the outsider here, I reminded myself.

That didn’t stop me from holding out a gauntleted hand to him once he had finished his bow. He looked curiously at me for a moment, then seemed to instinctively understand the gesture. With a wry face, he reached out and clasped my hand in his.

Cara, who had watched our interplay with a smile that spoke of suppressed laughter, turned her attention to the old man and woman who had been afflicted by the Festering. She went over and started administering some of her potions to them.

“My name is Toshiro,” the yellow-clad man said to me.

“I’m Leofwine,” I replied. “But you may call me Leo. The beautiful woman attending to the elderly man and woman is my companion and fellow warrior.”

“I have traveled to many places and seen many strange things, and you two are by far the strangest. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your intervention. I dread to even contemplate what would have become of me if you and your companion had not arrived.”

Toshiro had a soft, precise way of speaking. It made me think that he was a man who would not say or do anything carelessly. He looked me up and down with a very perceptive eye, taking in my armor’s huge steel plates enamelled in white, my shin guards, my gauntlets, and the mysterious runes engraved on my armor.

As I watched him examining me, I realized that some explanation of our presence would have to be given. Toshiro seemed too polite to ask directly, but his question was in every line of his face.

“You are right, Toshiro of Yamato. Cara and I have come from a distant land. We were sent to hunt down and root out the evil which has come to this land; the evil which corrupted the Kitsune spirit and entrapped you. The Festering.”

“The Festering...” He repeated the word under his breath, then slow understanding dawned on his face. He nodded, looking pleased. “Ah, I understand what you mean. We have a different word for it. Here, we call it Kanosuru. The legendary darkness that creeps in under the vigilance of men. It searches out vulnerable places, and it takes hold of weakened things, spreading out like infection from a dirty wound.”

I nodded. “Exactly. So you know of this, then?”

A shadow darkened his face, and he looked troubled, as if he were searching for the right words. “I know of it, yes,” he said at last, “and there are others who know of it too, but its presence is by no means generally accepted. There are many, particularly in the more populated part of the land, who do not accept that the presence of the Kanosuru is a threat at all. Perhaps it is for the best. But the people in power, they refuse to acknowledge its existence, and that is a very terrible thing, for they are the ones with the ability to stop it .”

That interested me. I took a breath to ask a question, but at that moment, Cara gave a cry of satisfaction. The old woman had woken up, and now sat up with bleary eyes, looking around her in confusion.

“What happened...?” she asked out loud.

Cara glanced up at Toshiro, who gave his head a small shake.

He knelt by the woman’s side. “The shrine was attacked by bandits,” he said to her. “You were knocked on the head, and your husband too, but you are fine now. These warriors saved you.” He gestured at Cara and I.

The old lady rubbed her head. “I don’t know what the Shogun does all day, sitting in his castle in Otara while bandits roam the hills only a day’s journey away, and old folk like me and my husband cannot come to the shrine to worship in peace. And, it seems, those bandits have destroyed the shrine.” She seemed a little teary as she looked at the ruined building.

Her husband was waking up as well, and it wasn’t long before the two old people were walking slowly away from us down the path, arm in arm, leaning on each other a little for support.

“You let them believe that it was bandits that had attacked the shrine,” I said to Toshiro.

Toshiro nodded gravely. “Knowledge of the Kanosuru, the Festering as you call it, is not widespread. It makes sense to me that those of us who know about it should protect simple folk from the knowledge, at least until we can understand more about it ourselves.”

“That makes sense,” Cara said thoughtfully. “Knowledge like that can cause panic. Are the people here superstitious?”

Toshiro looked away, smiling fondly. “Very,” he said. “And with good reason. This land is full of spirits and strange effects. I myself came this morning to leave an offering for the Kitsune. But come, let’s not stand here talking. I have a proposal for you both.”

“Go on,” I said.

“May I invite you to my home? I live half a day’s walk north of here, in the foothills of those mountains.” He pointed toward the snow-capped mountain range that glowed purple off in the distance. “Will you come with me? You could base yourselves there; it is a safe place.”

I looked at Cara and raised my eyebrows in question. She immediately nodded. I could see that, like me, she already liked and trusted this quietly spoken, intelligent man. In Saxe, a person’s honor and integrity were everything; it made the people of Saxe good judges of character. It was clear that he would have more to say, and a friendly, knowledgeable local was always a good friend to make.

I smiled and accepted his invitation.

“I’m going to change out of this armor,” I warned him. “It might seem a little strange. Please, don’t be alarmed.”

I turned my intention on the armor and took a breath, thinking about the light woollens and supple leather boots which were the humbler aspect of the Ironside Persona. There was a wash of warm light and a pleasant sensation of heat, and my outfit had changed.

Toshiro took a step back, gazing at my transformation in wonder.

“This is incredible!” he said, seeming genuinely amazed. “I’ve never seen such a thing! Can everybody in your land do this?”

“Just me, as far as I know,” I replied. “Come on. Let’s go back to your place. I can tell you more about it there.”

He was nodding slowly, looking from me to Cara and back again with a thoughtful expression. “Very well. Leofwine, Cara, I think you two might be just what this land was needing.”

We walked out of the glade, leaving the empty shrine silent behind us.

Toshiro led us down a long, winding path away from the shrine north-west, toward the mountains, the roofs of Otara on our right, and the dense woods where we had entered Yamato off to our left. I could see now that those woods were the outliers of a dense forest that cloaked a range of hills, stretching away to the south into a dark haze under the bright sky. Pockets of woodland dotted the lush grasslands, and the whole place seemed rich and full of life.

I looked up and saw that the sun had passed the midpoint. It was hot, and the air was humid despite the sea breeze. My clothing did not get too hot, and I was glad of my lighter outfit which the Persona of Ironside could transform into. Cara, in her tight leather armor with her weapons and gear, was sweating in the heat as we walked.

The land was rising steadily. We had been walking for perhaps an hour, saying little, when we reached Toshiro’s home. The flats ended in a tumble of hills, and the path began to climb steeply. The rocky hills were thick with low trees, not blossom trees this time, but graceful birches in the full flush of spring.

“This land is beautiful,” Cara said, a little out of breath from the heat and the climb.

Toshiro bobbed his head and smiled as if she had complimented him. “Yamato is the most beautiful land in all the world, and this mountain sanctuary is the most beautiful part of the most beautiful land, at least in my opinion.”

After half an hour’s walking, we came to a cleft in the rock. Toshiro gestured us in.

We stepped into a passageway running through the cliff. It was narrow, barely wide enough for two to walk side by side. The walls soared up sheer on either side, showing a narrow slice of blue sky high above. Cara was in front, and as she turned a corner ahead of me, I heard her gasp in surprise and amazement. I hurried forward, around the corner, and stepped out of the narrow passage to stand beside her.

Below us was a wide, roughly circular valley surrounded and closed in on all sides by sheer cliffs. Water dripped and sparkled as it ran down these rock walls. The cliff walls were rough, gray, natural rock. The trickling water fed a dense growth of thick ferns, deep moss, and small trees. In the middle of the space, the running water pooled to form a wide, deep lake. The runoff from this made a gurgling stream which chuckled merrily away and disappeared through a crack in the base of the cliffs, off to the left of the entrance where we stood. The whole enclosed valley was brimming with dense growth.

By the edge of the lake, a sprawling, eccentric-looking wooden building stood on stilts. It had the strange roofs with curled edges and red tiles which I was becoming familiar with. At first glance, the building was a chaotic jumble of multiple floors, decks, stairways, and roofs, but the closer I looked, the more I realized that it followed a strange but definite order. There was a lower central portion on the main deck, and from this three wings extended on both sides and behind. The central part, I saw now, was constructed with stone, but the extended wings and the many smaller floors piled on top of the central structure were all made of wooden planking, like the shrine had been.

All around the building were tended gardens, and I could see figures moving to and fro down there. Shafts of afternoon sunlight shone down into the valley. A winding path made its lazy way up from the gardens, past the lake, and up through the high ferns and low trees to the valley entrance where we stood.

Cara reached out and squeezed my hand. I glanced down at her in surprise and found her smiling up at me.

“It certainly is an amazing place,” I said.

Toshiro smiled with satisfaction as he stepped onto the path and began to lead the way down.

“And this is your home, Toshiro?” Cara asked. “How long have you lived here?”

“How long? I don’t know exactly. I don’t count the passing years, not anymore. It’s been a long time, a very long time, I suppose. I am older than I look.”

He left that intriguing statement hanging, and we followed him down along the path toward his house in silence.

The valley was deep, and while the afternoon sun arched down into it now, I guessed that for much of the day, Toshiro’s home would be surrounded by cool shade. In the colder climate of Saxe, that would be an undesirable trait for a home. Here in Yamato, it seemed a very attractive quality. Already, Cara seemed refreshed by the cool, damp air of the valley. It was yet another interesting difference between the world we had come from and the world we were in.

“We call it Ferndale,” Toshiro said, gesturing at the valley around us. “There is an abundance of ferns here, and we cultivate them. Some have healing properties, but many are just pleasing to look at.”

“You say ‘we’,” Cara asked. “You don’t live alone?”

“No, no, I have a considerable staff of servants here, to look after the house and the garden, and to take care of things while I am away. Not that I leave often these days, but I enjoy the company.”

While they were talking, I looked around the valley, enjoying the cooler air and the sound of running water everywhere around us. It felt like a peaceful place, a place of sanctuary.

After walking for a little while, not hurrying, we reached the house. Servants greeted Toshiro gladly. Although a few of them cast questioning glances in our direction, they seemed to accept our presence without much difficulty. Toshiro offered no explanation, and his servants asked none.

He took us through the main hall of the house, a dim, cool, mostly empty space with bright painted artwork on the walls and simple furniture in the shadows at the edges of the room. Out back, we found ourselves in a well-maintained garden with fruit trees, brightly flowering bushes, and more ferns all surrounding a small pond where plump, golden fish moved and leaped in the water.

There was a round table there and three comfortable seats. An elderly man in a practical purple outfit of tunic and trousers hurried out of the house. When he reached us, he bowed first to Toshiro and then to us.

“Ah, Win,” Toshiro said, then turned to us. “Cara, Leofwine, this is Win, the head of my staff. He manages the servants and runs the household on my behalf. Win, these honorable people are my guests. Please show them to the guest suite on the top floor, and ensure they know how to get in touch with you if they want anything.” He smiled at us. “Win will show you upstairs. When you are ready, you will find me here. I think we have much to discuss.”

We both thanked him, and the elderly servant beamed at us and took us back into the main hall. This time, we took a right instead of passing straight through and found ourselves climbing a winding wooden spiral stair. We passed doorways onto two floors. The first was bustling with activity; shouting and the smell of cooking. The second seemed very quiet and empty.

When we reached the third floor, Win bowed and gestured us into a wooden corridor hung with more paintings. Some of the artwork depicted incredibly detailed, stylized representations of warriors. I saw portraits of men in fierce poses, dressed in armor and wielding swords similar to those I’d seen in my vision of Otara before we’d stepped through the portal. Others were pictures of mythical scenes; a forest scene featuring a fox-spirit similar to the Kitsune I had met in the psychic plane after the battle at the shrine. With that thought, I felt the Kitsune Persona twitching at the edge of my awareness. I pushed it back for the moment. Now was not the time to be experimenting with that.

“Here is your room,” Win said, sliding a door to one side.

Cara and I both smiled at that—here, all the doors seemed to take the form of sliding screens, not the hinged and swinging variety which we were used to in Saxe.

“If you need anything, pull on this rope to ring the bell on the servants’ floor.” He gestured to a red bell pull hanging just inside the door. Then he bowed and retreated from the room, leaving us alone.

Cara slid the screen door back in place, and we looked around the room together. It was spacious, clean, and simple, with two generously-sized sleeping mats, a side table with bowls of wash-water, towels, and a bowl of fruit. At the far side of the room, another screen door opened on a small balcony. It provided a wide view of the majestic cliff walls that bordered the valley, along with the wild green expanse of trees, brush, and fern that lay at their feet.

“You trust him?” Cara asked me.

I thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “I do. I don’t think we have anything to fear from Toshiro. You can leave your weapons here safely, I think.”

“Good. I think so too, but I wanted to make sure you agreed. Today was truly incredible.”

“It was,” I said.

“I wonder when we will work out how to share the Personas?”

“I’m sure we will come across that skill in time. From the way the Keeper spoke, it was something we would discover by chance, rather than something we could actively seek out.”

There was a brief cough outside the door, and I pulled the screen across to reveal a woman and a young man, carrying trays of food, bowls of warm, scented wash water, and a pile of washcloths and towels. I stepped aside, and they laid these all out on a long low table by the wall, then bowed their way out, closing the door behind them.

“Look, Leo,” Cara said, and I saw that she was holding up a green dress of fine gauzy cloth. “They’ve provided me with something more comfortable to wear.”

I smiled and turned away as she took off her potion belt and her weapons, laying them in the corner. To give her a bit of privacy, I wandered off toward the window to look out at the view. From behind me, I heard the sound of splashing and Cara making pleased sounds as she washed the sweat and the road dust from her body.

“Leo?” she said, after everything had been quiet for a moment. “What do you think?”

I turned from the window and looked back into the room.

She was wearing the green dress, and it fitted her well. She was a lithe woman, and the thin material hugged her toned figure and left little to the imagination. It had a high neckline and a drop that fell almost to her ankles, and yet the fabric was so fine that I almost thought that I could see the fine ribbed gooseflesh around her erect nipples.

I cast an admiring glance up and down her body, and she put her hands on her hips and struck a pose. I laughed, and she chuckled, too. Impulsively, she took a step toward me then hesitated.

“Leo...” she said, but then trailed off.

“Yes, Cara?”

She blushed suddenly. It was so unlike her to be embarrassed about anything that I almost laughed again.

“What is it?” I asked gently, restraining the laugher.

She blinked a few times, seeming lost for words. After a moment, she spoke again. “In Saxe, you made no secret of your admiration for me. And I think I made it clear that I felt the same about you.”

“That’s right,” I said. “But we both knew we could never take it any further, since the laws of Saxe prohibit warband leaders from getting involved with each other. When the Keeper asked you if you would come through the portal, you agreed. I made a joke about it, but it was truly part of the reason you came, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” she said. “By stepping through that portal, we left our homeland behind us. We’re not in Saxe anymore. Perhaps we never shall be again.”

“That’s true...”

She took three quick steps toward me and looked up into my eyes. Her lips parted slightly, and I reached out to place a hand on her hip. At the same time, we both leaned in to each other’s embrace. It was true. We were no longer in Saxe, and there was no prohibition against our relationship here in Yamato.

Our lips met in a gentle, exploratory kiss which quickly became firm. She let out a soft moan as I pressed a hand to the small of her back. After a moment, we drew away from each other. She gazed up into my eyes.

“We should go down to Toshiro,” I said. “I want to take my time with this, and I don’t want anyone interrupting.”

She bit her lower lip and let out a groan. “I want you now, Leo, but I fear you’re right. If we’re to spend hours upon hours lovemaking, then we won’t want to be interrupted.”

The afternoon was passing as Cara and I descended the stairs to the ground floor again. We walked closer together than ever before, and I could feel the heat of Cara’s body whenever she brushed against me. My body ached to take her, but we would have time enough for that in the evening. We had waited this long; we could wait a few more hours.

When we reached the garden at the back of the house, the shade had deepened. It might still have been a bright afternoon outside the valley, but here a cool dusk was taking hold already. As we moved through the main hall, men were lighting lamps and hanging them throughout the house.

Outside, lamps were also being lit. They were made from paper and threw a soft, warm light on the little garden scene.

Toshiro had made himself comfortable on one of the chairs, and food and plates laid on the table.

He smiled warmly at us and gestured to the seats. We joined him and quickly settled down to our meal, having worked up quite the hunger. The food was strange to my palate; salty fish, steamed greens, pickled vegetables, and white, fluffy rice. Toshiro had provided us with wide ceramic spoons to eat with, but for himself he used a pair of sticks as long as his hand, which he held between his thumb and forefingers and deftly used to lift the food to his mouth.

He saw that I was watching this feat with interest, and gestured to me with the sticks. “Chopsticks,” he explained. “The traditional way of eating here in Yamato. I guessed you would prefer the spoon, which seems most widespread in all other lands I’ve visited.”

“It’s certainly what I’m used to,” I said, “but I’d like to experience eating with the sticks.”

Toshiro chuckled and spoke to a hovering servant, who went away and returned shortly afterward with two more pairs of chopsticks. Cara and I both gave it a try, copying Toshiro’s technique. It was harder than it looked—much harder, in fact—but after a few tries, we both found ourselves able to work our way through the food with ease.

Toshiro clapped his hands, delighted at our efforts.

“Very good!” he said. “The people of Saxe learn fast!”

When we had finished our meal, the servant took the dishes away and returned with a tall ceramic bottle and small cups. These he laid out on the table before us. Toshiro thanked him reflexively, and the servant bowed and retreated to the house. I glanced after him, and as I did so, I saw that every window on the house was now glowing with the warm, soft light of the lanterns. Lamps had been lit and hung outside the windows right up to the third floor, so the whole building was illuminated.

Our host poured for us. “This is saké, the traditional drink of Yamato. It’s brewed from rice to make a sweet, fragrant drink; not too strong, but not too weak either. The saké of Otara is some of the best in Yamato. Win tells me that since my retirement, I have gotten too much of a taste for it, but I suspect that he just does not feel quite content unless he has something to berate me about.”

I took a sip of the clear liquid. It was as he had said, sweet and sharp at the same time, very different from the rough grape and apple wines I’d been used to in Saxe. It burned pleasantly on the way down, and I felt the warm flush of the alcohol settle into my system. Cara let out a contented sigh, settling back into her chair with the wine in her hand. When I glanced at her, she met my eyes and gave me a secret smile, and the promise in her eyes of what would come later this evening made my heart beat a little faster.

Toshiro drained his glass and refilled it immediately, then sat back, as if waiting for one of us to break the silence.

“You said, ‘since your retirement,’” I prompted him. “What profession did you retire from?”

“Ah,” he said slowly, and there was a regretful look in his eyes. “I was a warrior. A killer, if you will. I took the lives of men with my sword, that was my profession. I was a Samurai in the service of the Shogun, the military ruler of Yamato. For many years,” he added, nodding sadly to himself. He knocked his cup back, swallowed, and refilled it a third time. I wondered for a moment if the old servant Win was correct that Toshiro had gained an unhealthily large taste for the drink. Tasty as it was, I was still only halfway down my first cup.

“Why did you leave the service of the Shogun?” Cara asked him gently. He had lapsed into silence again, but he gave himself a little shake and glanced around at us.

“It was the Kanosuru that ended my career as a Samurai. The evil that you call the Festering. I trust you both, and I’m going to tell you that which few people but my old manservant Win have heard before. You, I saw you destroy the Festering-corrupted spirit at the shrine. You seem unaffected by the terror that it gives out, the horror and evil which are the hallmarks of the Festering. In all my days as a wandering Samurai after I left the Shogun’s service, I saw the Festering in many lands, and in many forms, but I never saw anyone willing or even able to fight it. For this reason, I’m putting my trust in you.”

He took a deep breath and glanced down at the cup in his hand. I saw him consider drinking it off again. Then he replaced it on the table and sat up straight.

“You can safely trust us, Toshiro,” I reassured him. “We are here to cleanse the Festering, whatever form it takes.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Well, in this land, it has taken the Shogun. It was years ago now. I was one of the Shogun’s retainers. We had been in countless battles together as he subjugated and put down the bandit rebellions in the northern provinces. I was one of the elites, his closest unit of bodyguards. We were an unbeatable force in campaign, and stronghold after stronghold fell before us. Shogun Morai’s coming was like the advancing of the great sea; none could stand before him, and we all basked in his glory.”

Toshiro’s eyes were unfocused now, gazing into the distance as he remembered his old life. “The campaign was won, of course, and peace was brought back to the land. Shogun Morai ruled well and justly at first, but as the years passed some began to whisper that not all was as it should be. There were complaints about trade taxes, about favoritism, that kind of thing. I paid no heed to any of that; politics was never my interest. We had become a ceremonial retinue, now that there were no more rebel groups left to fight, and I was dissatisfied with life. There was a woman in Otara whom I had my eye on, and I knew that I had this place to retire to if I so chose.”

He gestured around him at his beautiful, peaceful home. “One night, I couldn’t sleep, and so I decided to ask the man I admired the most for advice: Shogun Morai. I climbed from my bed and made my way up the stairs to the Shogun’s chambers on the top floor of Otara castle, knowing that he was always generous with his time for those he favored. I would ask him for an audience, and I felt sure it would be granted. When I reached the door to his chambers, I found to my surprise that he had sent all his servants away. There was a flickering light coming from behind the screen door, and a sound of... voices. Voices like I’d never heard before, as if there were ten thousand people all whispering in unison. Fear came over me, but I mastered myself. I stepped forward and pushed aside the door.”

This time he did lift his cup. He drank half his wine down in a slow, methodical gulp and then put it back down. There was an unsteady clink as the ceramic cup met the iron table. It was the first real sign of disturbance he had shown since we’d met him, despite his terrible experience of earlier.

Cara and I waited. We were totally absorbed in his story. Toshiro sat silent for a moment. Around us, the light had dimmed to a blue and hazy dusk, and the chirring of evening insects filled the air with a homely, comforting sound. Fireflies danced in the darker air away from the house. Nearer at hand, fat white moths fluttered around the hanging lamps that were suspended from the house’s outer walls.

After a short time, Toshiro sighed and continued.

“I will remember that sight until the day I die,” he said reluctantly. “Shogun Morai stood alone in the center of a ring of candles. His arms were raised, and he wore a black and hooded robe from head to foot. Outside the ring of candles, shadows had gathered like a fine black mist. They swirled and danced all round the circle, and faces leered in the darkness, terrible, evil faces that leered and chattered at him, but seemed unable to pass the barrier of the candle light. I stood, frozen, witless, with the door half drawn, staring into the room. As I watched, a figure began to materialise inside the circle. It was made of the condensing mist, and as it grew and took shape I saw that it had skin the color of wet ashes. It was horrible, like one of the Wokou, but deformed...”

“The Wokou?” Cara said gently.

Toshiro startled, glancing around fearfully for a moment as if he had become so absorbed in the memory that he had lost touch with where he sat at this moment. His eyes snapped back into focus and he looked from one to the other of us. “Of course, you do not know. Forgive me, I was forgetting you are new to the land. The Wokou are... small people, like men, but short and stocky. Even the tallest ones do not come up higher than my chest. They are always bearded, and they take pride in their beards. They are fierce fighters with axe and bow, and mighty cunning at building with stone and at the casting of weapons from metal. We have gained a great deal of our metalworking knowledge from the Wokou, and we buy a great deal of our raw metal from them. They are famous traders, and they run mines and smelt ore in great quantity in their mountain settlements, far away up the coast from here.”

Cara and I looked at each other. These Wokou sounded familiar.

“Dwarves?” I said.

Cara nodded. Quickly, she explained to Toshiro about the Dwarven miners who inhabited the mountain ranges to the north of Saxe. Skilled builders and metal workers, fierce, proud, long-bearded fighters, the dwarves were the allies of the men of Saxe. Long ago, there had been war between us, but it had benefited neither party, and for long years now the men and women of Saxe had been profitable trading partners with the Dwarves.

Toshiro was nodding. “Dwarves,” he mused, trying out the strange word. “They certainly sound the same, except for one thing; in Yamato, the Wokou are seafarers. They mine with great skill, as your Dwarves do, but when they have ore or ingots to sell, they set out on epic trading missions, living in their long ships for long periods of time and trading far up and down the coast of this land, and even further afield.”

“But Toshiro, I’m sorry,” Cara said, “I interrupted your story with my question. Won’t you tell us what happened after you saw the dwarf-like figure manifesting in front of Shogun Morai?”

“Ah, I will. But please, do not apologize. I had forgotten where I was for a moment, becoming lost in the unpleasant memory, and you brought me back. Where was I? Yes, there is not much more to tell. At first I thought that the creature would attack the Shogun, and I nearly ran in. Then I saw that it was not so. Shogun Morai himself had summoned the thing, created it with magic of some evil kind. He pushed back his deep hood and his head was wreathed in dark mist. Then he spoke to the creature, and when he did so, tentacles writhed and lashed out from the back of his neck, and I knew that he was corrupted by the Kanosuru. The creature he had conjured cringed before him, but he gave it some command in a strange language and it fled, leaping from the window and transforming into a transparent smoke. Then, two days later, one of the Shogun’s most dangerous political rivals was found dead, alone in his bedroom in the town. There was no apparent cause of death, but I made it my business to look at the room in which the man had died. There was a thick gray paste, like wet ashes, smeared on the wall outside, and splattered upon the back wall of the dead man’s room. I had no doubt that the Shogun had summoned some horrible creature of evil to do his bidding for him, and assassinate his rival.”

He sat back, looking at us both, then extended his open hands toward us in a pleading gesture. “What could I do? The Shogun had been caught by me in a shameful, horrible act, the act of summoning demons to kill a rival by stealth magic. Nobody in Yamato can do such a thing without great shame. We know it is possible, we know that such magic exists, but it is not something an honorable man can even consider. I was placed in a terrible position. The Shogun was my lord, I had served him in battle. I had sworn my life to him. How could I betray him? I decided that the only thing I could do to preserve my honor—and his—would be to take my own life.”

“To take your own life?” Cara repeated, disbelieving. She gasped, and sat back in her seat, her hands on the table in front of her. I recoiled in horror. In Saxe, suicide was considered one of the worst things a person could do, certainly one of the most dishonorable possible endings for a warrior to come to. It was bad enough for a farmer or a merchant, but for a warrior it was an unforgivable act.

Toshiro looked from one to the other of us and nodded slowly. “This, I see, is another one of the many differences between your land and mine, my friends. Here in Yamato, the ritual we call Seppuku plays a powerful role in our politics and how we conduct our wars. For a man who has lost all honor through defeat or poorly judged action, ending his own life in Seppuku is often the only way he can regain some of his honor.”

That was the biggest difference we had found so far between Yamato and Saxe. Cara shifted in her seat, and I could tell that it made her uncomfortable. I didn’t like the idea either, but I wanted to find out more about it. I would ask about it later. For now though, I was eager to find out what Toshiro had done to save himself from that fate.

“Go on,” I urged him. “What made you change your mind?”

The old Samurai’s eyes lifted up from the table where he was looking, and I saw that they had fixed on something over my shoulder. I glanced round. The old serving man, Win, who had shown us to our rooms had approached silently from the direction of the house, carrying a little paper lantern which shone with a clean, pale light. The old serving man was dressed simply, in practical purple tunic and trousers. He had tightly-fitting shoes of cloth laced up past his ankles, and a round skull cap perched upon his head. Tufts of white hair stuck out from under the cap, and his little goatee beard was white as snow against his sunburned skin. Toshiro smiled up at him. Win looked down at us all with a polite, neutral expression.

“I’ve come to see if you are needing anything else?” he said.

Toshiro smiled and looked back at me. “You asked what saved me from Seppuku? I talked it over with the man I trusted the most in all the world, my loyal squire. This man here.” He gestured at Win.

The old servant’s face crinkled into a sudden smile as he took in the bottle and glasses. “Ah, you have been at the saké again, have you, master? And have you been telling our guests all our old stories?” Win scolded him gently, but there was a flash of urgent enquiry in his eyes as he looked at his master. Toshiro nodded, looking tired.

“That’s right, Win. I’ve been telling our guests the tale. You did not see what they did earlier today, how they drove out the Kanosuru which had infested the shrine of the fox-spirit. The Kanosuru taint has never come so close to Otara before, and these warriors have a power to resist it such as we have never seen before. I have decided to open my heart to them, and if we can make progress against the Kanosuru together, then perhaps I will not have failed in my life after all.”

The old servant gazed thoughtfully at me and Cara for a long moment. He did not look entirely sure of us, and I suddenly saw myself from his point of view; a tall, pale-skinned, fair haired, broad-shouldered man with a strange accent in a land of small, dark-skinned and darker-haired folk. It was no surprise he wondered who we were, and questioned whether his master was right to trust us with his dark tale.

“We’re here to help,” I said reassuringly to the old man, and after a moment longer, he nodded. Quickly, I explained to him our knowledge of the Festering, how it had come to our land, and how Cara and I had driven it away and traveled here, looking for more Festering-taints to fight and cleanse. I didn’t go into detail about the Keeper or the Personas, nor about exactly how we’d got here, but Win seemed satisfied with my explanation.

“Well,” he replied eventually, “if my master trusts you, that’s good enough for me. He was not such a good judge of actions back in the old days as he is now. I will trust his judgement on this.”

“Thank you, Win,” Toshiro said sincerely, and I realized that these two had a relationship of mutual respect that went back way further than master and servant, and even than warrior and squire. Toshiro and Win had fought together on countless battlefields and had probably saved each other’s lives more than once. They were true brothers-in-arms.

Toshiro took up the story. “After I saw the terrible sight of Shogun Morai communing with the Kanosuru demons, Win convinced me that I would be serving a greater purpose by learning about the terror that had come to taint the heart of the land, even as high as the Shogun himself. Win made me realize that committing Seppuku would be a selfish action, since it would save my honor, but might cause me to miss the opportunity to save the land and the Shogunate from even worse doom.”

He glanced fondly at his old retainer, who stood by the table, listening to the conversation with a quiet smile. “Foolish is the wise man who cannot heed the wisdom of another,” Win said, and both he and Toshiro nodded emphatically as if this was an old saying. I liked the sound of it; it made sense to me.

“We were convinced that we had to tell people of what I had seen,” Toshiro went on. “I retired from the guard company—it would have been unthinkable to stay—and that did not create much of a stir, since many knew I’d been considering leaving anyway. The Shogun gave me a handsome payment, and Win and I set out to discover what we could about this cursed magic that our Shogun was involved in.”

“We traveled far and learned much,” Win said, “but everywhere we went we found a reluctance to speak about it. Yamato—you may not know—Yamato is an archipelago, a great group of many hundreds of islands all packed close together in the sea. We traveled throughout Yamato and we found pockets of the Kanosuru taint all over the land. Yet everyone we spoke to was in denial about its existence. We found that it took over remote shrines and corrupted the spirits there, but rarely went further. Most people simply stopped going to the shrines. They would shake their heads and say, “No, that has become a bad place,” but no one ever decided to do anything about it.”

Between them, Toshiro and Win told Cara and me how they had traveled away from the archipelago of Yamato, taking ship to the continental coast off to the northwest of their land, looking for more evidence of the Festering and for people who were willing to fight it. They found none, instead finding only denial and people determinedly ignoring the influence. Eventually, they had returned to Yamato.

Back home, they had spoken discreetly to a few trusted people in Otara and in the other nearby towns, and found that things were strange at the top of the power structure. The Shogun was wilful, causing problems for his subordinates and sometimes displaying cruel traits. He sought sorcerers and soothsayers, and some said he communed with evil forces in the darkness when other men slept.

Despite these rumors, there was no acceptance that anything should actually be done about it. The few to whom Toshiro directly told his story had refused to believe him. The power structure of Yamato was based on a rigid, immovable code of honor and hierarchy. People would rather die than ever be suspected of openly questioning their superiors. It made my head hurt, and I could see that Cara was as bewildered by this attitude as I was.

In Saxe, men and women alike gained rank and prestige based upon their actions, whether warlike or otherwise. We prized honesty above all things. If a ruler—a warband leader, or even a thane of a town—were suspected of using evil magic, his nearest warriors would be the first to call him out for it. Even a merchant suspected of slicing coins or smuggling would freely admit his scam and take the lashing which was due him as punishment. He would rather cut his tongue out than lie about it. And if he did he did happen to tell a lie, his friends would gladly cut his tongue out for him.

Here in Yamato, by contrast, the goal of their honor code seemed to be to maintain the facade of decency even when what was going on behind the scenes was dark, dangerous, and deadly.

“Eventually,” Toshiro concluded, “we came to realize that there was nothing to be gained by our investigation of the taint. Too many people were beginning to ask questions about us, and word got back to us that the Shogun himself had shown an interest in our questionings and prying. We could not risk being publicly accused of being rumour mongers or trouble stirrers. After all, we had no actual evidence of wrongdoing. And since the Festering did not seem to be active in the landscape anywhere near Otara—we could find no pockets of contamination in the woods or the mountains within sight of the town, no matter how we looked—we decided to retire quietly and see if anything would change.”

“That was some years ago now,” Win said, “some years indeed. And my master did not have such a taste for Otara saké back in those days. Now, he spends his evenings out here or on the balcony above, drinking and thinking, and his sword, his armor, and his naginata gather rust, or would if I did not oil and sharpen them regularly.”

“Win thinks I have let myself run to seed,” Toshiro explained to Cara and I with a smile, picking up his cup, “and I suppose I have to some degree. But what is retirement for if not to enjoy some pleasures?” Here he glared as Win, and his eyes flashed. “And I have not entirely given up my old talents, as well he knows!”

Cara and I both laughed, and I stood up, stretching, enjoying the feeling of the cool air on my skin as my shoulders and back cracked. I’d been sitting down too long. The dusk had turned to evening and then to true night while we had talked. From behind us, all was quiet in the house.

“Well,” I said, “if it’s not rude to suggest it, I think I’ll go to bed. It’s been a long day.”

“Of course,” Toshiro said. “And I think there is a cup or two of this fine saké left in the bottle, so I will just finish this off and listen to the song of the night insects.”

He hefted the bottle with a mischievous look at the disapproving expression on Win’s face. Cara stood as well, smiling at me. We said our goodnights to the old pair. Toshiro smiled, bowed, and said goodnight. Win wished us a goodnight as well, then turned his steely eye on his master again.

Cara and I walked back up to the house. As we stepped into the main hall, I glanced back, taking in the scene. Then I realized that most of their argumentativeness was for show.

In the light of the yellow lanterns, I saw that Win had taken the seat which I had vacated. He was pouring from the bottle, one for himself and one for Toshiro. There was the sound of low voices, and then the clink of two ceramic mugs as the old warriors raised a toast to each other. They both leaned back in their chairs in silence, looking out into the night.

Cara and I returned to our quarters, neither of us speaking but both very eager to be alone again. By the time we were inside the private chamber, my heart was racing, as though I was about to bed a woman for the very first time.

“The night is still young,” I said as I slid the door closed and turned to face Cara. “We were doing something before, weren’t we? I seem to recall your lips on mine, and my hands about your waist.”

Cara’s lips upturned into a sexy smile. “Oh, is that what we were doing? I’d almost forgotten. Shall we resume?”

I laughed as I took her in my arms. Our lips met in a gentle, exploratory kiss which quickly became firm. She let out a soft moan as I pressed a hand to the small of her back, feeling her muscles under my hand. Her hands came up to touch my face and neck, and her mouth was all over mine, kissing me hungrily. When we came up for air, I reached down and scooped her up in my arms. She felt as light as a feather and she laughed breathlessly as I carried her over to the sleeping mat and laid her down on it.

I dropped to my knees in front of her and pushed back the light fabric of the green dress. It slipped up the smooth surface of her long legs, past her full buttocks and then bunched in my hands at the small of her back. She groaned and opened her legs to me as she pulled the dress up and over her head, discarding it and throwing her head back as I dropped my head between her legs.

She was soaking wet and ready for me. My tongue found the center of her pleasure and worked it expertly, the sharp, clean taste of her filling my senses. Her hands were running through my hair. I wrapped my arms around her hips and moved with her as she rocked back and forth.

At some point, I turned part of my attention to the Persona I was wearing. To my satisfaction, it only took the slightest effort to make the entire outfit fade away. I was naked, working Cara to ecstasy with my tongue. Suddenly she bucked against me, and I felt her climax.

I reared up, rock hard, and she sat up and lunged forward to pull me into her mouth. Aside from the prohibition on relations between war leaders, the people of Saxe were not prudish about sex, and there were plenty of women who were eager to take their pleasure with a warrior like me. So, I was no stranger to hot sex with Saxen women, but Cara’s instinct for using her mouth was better than anything I’d experienced before. She worked my shaft with her tongue, her lips, and her hands, and the waves of pleasure rolled through me.

“Now, now, I need you inside me, Leo,” she panted, looking up at me with her lips just inches from my cock. She held my eyes for a moment, then turned around and got on her hands and knees in front of me, her legs spread wide and her glistening sex inviting me in.

I took her round, firm hips in my hands and guided myself inside, and she cried out in pleasure as I filled her. We quickly found our rhythm, and I found that she wanted it as hard as I could deliver. Her head was pillowed on the sleeping mat and her hands were rubbing at her clitoris as we built toward our climax together. Cara moaned and panted with the pounding rhythm and I felt her clench around me as her second climax started.

That was enough for me. Our simultaneous climax thundered through both of us, and the pleasure of feeling my seed pumping into her filled my senses. Then, there came a deepening and widening of my awareness. There was a swirling vortex of blue light joining me and Cara, and I felt strongly the presence of the Ironside Persona, and the Kitsune Persona.

And there were more. In the shadows around the two Personas, there were others whose shapes I couldn’t make out. Were they other Personas? I didn’t think so. It was more like they were spaces where new Personas could go. Spaces in a collection, with Ironside and Kitsune in the center, in pride of place. I saw lines of tall figures, like statues carved of stone, tall and imposing in the shadows. There were mythical creatures, great warriors, and strange beings which seemed neither human nor animal. In one long, shimmering moment, I saw at last the full potential of my power to bind Personas. It was limitless.

The vision passed. Cara turned and reached up to put her arms around me. We collapsed together onto the soft warmth of the sleeping mats. We kissed again, our sweat mixing on our lips and making the kiss salty. She rolled on top of me, then lay her head on my chest, making contented noises as she snuggled in. I reached out and pulled a blanket over us, then wrapped my arms around her.

We slept all night. When I woke up it was very early, and the sun was just climbing over the rim of the clifftop to illuminate the valley outside. I stood, and Cara rolled over and wrapped the blankets snugly around herself, then sat up, yawning. Her hair was wild about her head, and she smiled at me as I walked over to the bowls of water, picked up a cloth, and washed. The cold water made me catch my breath. I felt awake, looking forward to the day.

“Did you see the vision of all the Personas?” Cara asked sleepily as she watched me washing.

I turned my head quickly to look at her. “Yes,” I said, surprised. “Did you see it too? I thought that was just me.”

She shook her head, slowly. “I saw them. Ironside and Kitsune were very clear, but there were others, thousands of others, just waiting to be found. They were mysterious, tantalizing, like faces seen through a curtain.”

I looked at her in amazement. “Cara, you realize what this could mean?”

“No...” she said, then trailed off as understanding began to take shape. “You... you don’t mean... you think I can...?”

“I think this might mean we can share Personas! This must have been what the Keeper was talking about!”

She jumped up from the bed, her naked body confidently on display. In the morning light, she was magnificent. She stood, gold hair artlessly flung over her shoulder, her hands on her shapely hips. I ran my eyes up her long, graceful legs, past the blonde tuft of hair between her legs, over her round, pert breasts, her toned shoulders, and her elegant, pale neck. When I found her eyes, she was smiling wickedly at me, and I felt myself growing hard just looking at her.

I glanced toward the window. “It’s early yet.”

“It certainly is.”

The sun was well over the horizon when we finally made it downstairs. Our excitement at the prospect of sharing Personas hadn’t stopped us getting involved in another session of passionate lovemaking, this time without any magical events at the climax. When we had both satisfied each other again, we ate the meal of pickled vegetables, crisply fried meat, sweet red fruit, and soft, savory boiled grain that had been laid out for us the night before. Cara dressed in her leathers and weapons again, and I opted for the civilian outfit aspect of the Kitsune Persona.

We went downstairs and out through the main part of the house into the wide courtyard out back. Though surrounded by elegant gardens, the courtyard itself was clean brushed earth. The old servant, Win, was there, and he greeted us cordially.

“I will go fetch my master,” he said. “I am sure you all have much to discuss.”

We were left in the courtyard alone. We were both itching to try our new ability, but not quite sure how to go about it.

“Can you feel the Personas?” I asked.

Cara screwed up her brows in concentration. “Yes, it’s strange, it’s like they are hovering just out of reach of my mind.”

“Reach for one,” I urged her.

“I’m trying,” she said. “I can’t get a grip on it.”

“Which one are you reaching for?”

“The Kitsune Persona.”

A flash of intuition revealed it to me. “No, hold on, perhaps you can’t because I’m wearing it. Try the Ironside Persona instead.”

“Ah! That would make sense,” she said. “All right, I’ll try... Oh!”

It was amazing to see the transformation from an observer’s perspective. White and blue light flashed through her, and her leather armor shivered and transformed. As I had suspected it might, the Ironside Persona manifested in a different way for her than it had for me. It was still a suit of armor, creamy white enameled metal surfaces and gold trim around the edges of the plate, but instead of being a full body suit, it left some of her skin exposed. Her taut belly was uncovered, as were her shoulders and the tops of her breasts. The metal plating was sculpted close to the shape of her chest, just covering her breasts and extending around the tops of her arms. At her hips, a chainmail skirt dropped to protect her hips and high boots reached up to the middle of her thighs, leaving a tantalizing expanse of white thigh uncovered.

On her back, instead of axes, there was a massive two-handed sword and a shield like the one I used, but smaller. Two smaller straight swords graced her belt, one at each hip.

With a laugh of delight, she reached for the big sword and it flew into her hand. She spun, whirling the huge blade in a two-handed grip, then flung it back onto her back and grabbed the two smaller swords. She dual-wielded them through a series of lightning swift cuts, diving across the courtyard and back as she lunged, slashed, and parried.

“It feels amazing!” she said as she came back to me, sheathing the swords. “Shall we swap? I’d like to try the Kitsune Persona.”

“All right, let’s try swapping.” I extended my awareness to the Ironside Persona, and felt her reaching for the Kitsune Persona at the same time. The swap happened instantaneously, with the familiar rush of warmth that came with the donning of the Persona of Ironside. As the Persona took hold of me, I chose the civilian outfit aspect and was pleased to find myself clad in the dark woolen tunic and trousers again. The Kitsune’s civilian robes had been comfortable, but the Ironside outfit was more like what I was used to wearing during my time off back in Saxe, and it felt somehow more comfortable.

Cara’s transformation was remarkable. Where the Shinobi outfit of the Kitsune Persona had manifested on me as a heavy, rather shapeless costume of dark cloth, on Cara it became a skin-tight suit of midnight black. Red runes in a script I did not recognize were woven into it, and slashes of dark crimson cloth outlined Cara’s hips and chest to great effect. The headgear was more shapely, too, showing more of her cheeks.

And then there were the weapons.

For me, the Kitsune Persona’s shinobi aspect had come with the shuriken stars and the tanto blade, but when Cara wore it the weapon roster was different. On her back was a recurve bow and quiver, both of black wood. The bow had bands of deep red at the spots on the top and bottom where the bowstring was fixed in place. The color matched the sleek red bands on her costume.

The shuriken star belt was still in place, slung over her left shoulder. At her left hip, there was a long straight sword in a sheath of gleaming black wood, and on her right, the belt broadened into a potion-holder with many small spaces filled with vials and bottles.

She drew the sword with a lightning quick motion, and the blade whispered death in the still morning air. To both of our surprise, the metal of the blade was as black as the rest of her costume.

“What do you think?” she asked me. She sheathed the sword again, then held her arms out and gave a twirl.

“I think it fits you as if it was made for you,” I said sincerely. “Try removing the headgear. Switching individual elements of the Personas is an important part of their use.”

She concentrated for a moment, and then the tightly-wrapped headgear was gone. The fabric flashed and flickered for a moment, then was gone. Cara’s wealth of fair hair tumbled down, unbound across her shoulders.

“I want to try the ice shuriken stars with a fire arrow,” she said, glancing about. “Where can we go where we won’t endanger the house?”

“You may practice here,” said the voice of Toshiro from behind us. We looked up to see his yellow-clad figure advancing down the steps toward us. He was smiling, and looking refreshed and renewed.

“You’re sure? But the magic, the explosions, it might damage your home.”

He shook his head. “My house is under an ancient enchantment that goes with the land. The furnishings, the contents, even the people inside may be damaged, but the fabric of the building—wood, stones, and slates—all will withstand magical and physical attacks. You need have no fear of causing injury to my home. I am eager to see you display your powers.”

He sat on a step and settled himself to watch our experimentation.

Cara said, “I’m going to try withholding the ice damage first, and just throwing a normal shuriken.” She lifted her hand to the sash.

Toshiro leaped to his feet. “Wait a moment!” he said, sounding excited, then hurried into the house, calling for the servants. A couple minutes later, five servants came out of the house carrying straw-filled practice dummies and a broad wooden board with a target painted on in black and white rings. At Toshiro’s instruction, they were set up at the far end of the yard.

“I’d almost forgotten them,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “This used to be a weapons practice court, back when I kept my skills in better condition.”

“You were a warrior, then?”

“I was one of the Shogun’s personal bodyguard. But enough of that. Let me see you demonstrate your skills. Don’t worry about destroying the dummies, we can make more.”

Cara slid three stars into her hand. Then she launched them at the board. They multiplied, then thudded into the target rings with beautiful accuracy. Toshiro clapped his hands. “Well done!” he cried. “Try again!”

Grinning at our host’s enthusiasm, Cara took another three stars. “I’m going to try something different, this time.”

She concentrated, then spun her whole body around and flung the deadly shuriken stars. This time, they did not multiply. She flung three, and three hit the board. I leapt to my feet in surprise. How had she done that? But before I could speak, she’d whipped another three stars from the belt and flung them. Again, they didn’t multiply, but that was not all. I smiled in amazement. Two stars were normal, but one trailed a freezing tail of ice behind it and froze the target board when it hit.

Not only had she worked out how to choose whether the stars multiplied in mid-air, she had also discovered how to do what I had not managed to do—she could apply the ice damage attribute to one star in a flight while withholding it from the others.

She turned to us and bowed, satisfaction and pleasure shining from her face.

“You did it!” I said.

“Yes. It’s hard to describe how I did it. It’s almost as if the Persona itself spoke to me, and I knew instinctively how to do it. Do you want to try?”

I shook my head. She had walked over to me, and now I put my hands on her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. “No,” I said, “I think that from now on, the Kitsune Persona is yours. The Personas I bind are bound not to me, but to us. I will use the Ironside Persona, because the axe suits my fighting style, but the Kitsune seems almost to have been made for you. Try your bow!”

Her eyes shone, and she leaned up to kiss me on the lips. Then she leaped away—the Persona had given her incredible agility, and she did a backflip onto her hands before springing up onto her feet again. The bow was in her hands, and three black-feathered arrows flew, slamming into the face of one of the training dummies.

She reached for a potion, and a bright yellow phial flew into her hand. She treated the tip of her arrow, nocked, drew, and loosed all in one fluid motion. She had already been greatly skilled, but the Kitsune Persona made her movements nearly as quick as sight.

One of the training dummies exploded into orange flames, and black smoke rose from the conflagration. She pulled a shuriken star, applied the ice magic and flung it into the fire. I expected an explosion, but instead a thick coating of ice wrapped the burning dummy, quenching the flames.

“That was unexpected!” she said.

“You must have to freeze the target first to achieve an explosion. Try again.”

Two more stars flew, thudding into the ice-covered figure. Two new layers of ice expanded rapidly to cover the first, leaving a shapeless, vaguely humanoid lump of opaque ice where the dummy had been. Then, a fire arrow flew from Cara’s bow.

This time, we got the expected result and then some. The thunderous explosion was deafening, and the shockwave from it knocked the other training dummies over and sent the wooden target flying. I braced as the shockwave hit me, and Toshiro leaped instinctively into a stylized fighter’s stance, one open palm raised in the direction of the explosion, the other in a fist at his hip. Cara dropped to one knee to resist the shockwave.

From the tall trees behind the house, a flight of brightly-colored birds rose shrieking in alarm. The trees swayed as the echoes died away, and to my surprise I heard clapping. I looked up and saw most of Toshiro’s servants crowded around the doorway of the house. They were clapping and cheering. Cara seemed a little embarrassed at them having seen her, but then she swallowed her embarrassment and gave them a little bow.

“I think that’s enough for the moment, don’t you?” she said, nodding at the mess the explosion had made of the practice court; lumps of smoldering wood and partially-melted ice lay scattered around one end of the area.

“As you wish,”said Toshiro. “For my part, I’m pleased to see some combat magic being practiced here at Ferndale again. It reminds me of the old days, and even makes me think about the future...”

“On that point,” I put in, “I think it’s about time we had some talk about what comes next, don’t you?”

“I do,” he said solemnly. “There is indeed a great deal to discuss. Come with me over to the pond, we’ll have some refreshments and talk things over.”

I looked at Cara. She nodded, then looked abstractedly away for a moment. I saw with satisfaction that she was applying her will to the Kitsune Persona. She was learning fast. The Shinobi outfit melted away, to be replaced with a beautifully patterned robe of silver-gray.

The civilian outfit aspect of the Kitsune Persona was perfect on Cara. For me, the gray robes had been comfortable and practical, but I preferred the familiar feel of the Saxe-style Ironside clothing. On Cara, the Kitsune manifested a gorgeous, figure-hugging robe of light yet warm and strong material. It had a plunging neckline, showing off the top of her well-formed breasts, and it was slashed up the side from ankle to hip, so that if she chose, it could leave her shapely legs bare to the open air.

She caught my admiring look and gave me a private smile. We followed Toshiro away from the practice court and into the garden, where we sat with him at a little wooden table beside a small pond in which fat golden fish moved lazily under white lilies.

“I have a question that’s been burning in my mind,” I said to Toshiro. “Did anyone ever try to fight the Festering?”

He shook his head. “That would be a foolhardy act. Only one man ever tried to do that. Not long after I left the Shogun’s retinue, I heard that another man, a close friend of mine, and one of the greatest Samurai in the retinue, had also left. There were dark rumors that he had seen something terrible, and some folk said he had gone mad, because he claimed there was some evil power in the mountains behind Otara. Suspecting the cause, I traveled to Otara to try to intercept him and stop him from going off alone, but I was too late. He was gone, and he was never heard of again. That was two years ago. But recently, stories have reached me from the villages at the foothills of the mountains. They say that a hungry ghost roams the hills on moonlit nights, dressed like a Samurai, but with a face of unspeakable horror. I suspect.... no, I know in my heart, that it is my old friend, corrupted by the Kanosuru.”

Cara and I glanced at each other, remembering what the keeper had told us when he had given us the quest—that a brave Samurai had gone out alone to investigate the threats, and had been ensnared.

“Your friend,” Cara asked gently. “What was his name?”

“Yakuna,” Toshiro whispered. “His name was Yakuna.”

We looked at each other again. Yakuna was the name the Keeper had given us. This, then, was one of the objects of our quest. We would find Yakuna and cleanse the Festering from him, freeing the land of his dangerous presence and laying Toshiro’s friend to rest in the process.

“Should we make a plan to find Yakuna?” I asked.

The sound of hurrying feet prevented any answer to my question. We all looked around to see old Win moving quickly toward us. He looked worried.

“What’s wrong?” asked Toshiro, instantly picking up on the old man’s concern.

“There is a large party of horsemen coming up the road toward the valley entrance. They are led by a man in a Kitsune priest’s robes, but they are a heavily armed and mean-looking band. My gut tells me they mean to bring trouble.”

“Very well,” Toshiro said, springing to his feet. “We will go and see them, though I’m not sure what I will be able to do...”

“You don’t have to worry,” I said reassuringly, laying a hand on Toshiro's shoulder. “Cara and I will see them off if they try to start trouble.”

Cara and I, clothed in our Personas, followed Toshiro through the main hallway of the big house and out onto the road in front. On the left, the wide expanse of the deep lake filled most of the valley, curving around to protect the left side of the house. On the right, the land dropped away into the valley, and the road climbed up in front of us to the high ridge over which we had come yesterday.

Now, looking up from the porch, we could see dark mounted figures streaming over the ridge.

“There are very many of them,” Toshiro said in a quiet voice. Then he called over his shoulder, “Win, tell everyone to get inside the house. They should go into the stone wing, they’re least likely to be injured there.” The old servant, who had followed us out front, hurried off to carry out the master’s orders.

“Those mounts don’t look like horses,” I commented as the dark mass of figures moved down the slope at an even pace toward us.

“They’re almost like wolves,” Cara added.

“They are Byakko, white tigers,” Toshiro confirmed. “In the northern islands there are places where the local people train the tigers as war mounts, then capture their spirits, but here in the south there is only one group who use them; the Byakko mercenaries.”

There was fear in his voice as he said it, and that made me glance at him. “Particularly fierce mercenaries, I take it?”

He gave me a wry look. “You could say that. They are bound to the spirits of the tigers they ride, and they are imbued with the ferocity of their mounts when in combat. It’s said that the Byakko mercenaries have never been defeated in battle.”

I reached out and felt the reassuring presence of the heavy armor of Ironside just waiting for me to reach out and claim it.

“Perhaps we’ll break that myth for them today,” I said.

The mounted horde thundered down the sloping incline toward Toshiro’s house. They pulled up fifty yards from where we stood, a band of two hundred battle scarred and fearsome looking men armed with all manner of bladed weapons; long spears with curved heads, graceful, slightly curved samurai swords, axes, straight swords, daggers, and knives. Many had bows on their backs as well. Their armor was brightly colored and followed no uniform pattern, except that every man has somewhere on his gear a symbol of a tiger’s head.

Their mounts were like nothing I’d ever seen during my life in Saxe. We’d heard of tigers—I’d seen images of them in books, and once I’d seen a carving made of stone which had been traded from an unknown land—but nothing in my previous experience prepared me for this.

They were easily as tall as horses, and broader than any warhorse I’d ever seen. Heavy muscles bunched and bulged under thick coats of dense white fur, striped in black. They were dressed in battle harnesses of leather, chain mail, and plate, and like the armor of their riders, this was brightly colored and followed no discernible pattern except for the lion’s head motif stamped into the metal and worked into the leather.

A deep, grumbling growl came from deep in the throats of the creatures. Heavy paws with claws like swords scraped the ground, and red eyes glowed from the shadows of helmets. Their long tails flicked menacingly back and forth.

Suddenly, these demonic riders parted to let a much less impressive figure through. It was, of all people, the little priest who I’d seen at the Kitsune shrine earlier, the first person I had met upon entering Yamato. He was mounted not on a tiger but on a tall warhorse, and he looked small and ridiculous perched on top of the enormous, noble creature.

Beside him rode a much more impressive figure, a tall samurai with a long spear on his back and two blades at his belt. From his armor, and his horse, I guessed he was not one of the Byakko mercenaries. He wore a tall, red-lacquered helmet with a flared neck guard and a half disk of gold, like a half moon on his brow. His armor was made of flexible, hanging plates of leather and metal, layered over chainmail. He had a thick black beard, and his eyes were dark and fierce.

“You,” he said, pointing a finger of one gauntleted hand at me. “I am General Koshu. I'm here to arrest you in the name of the Shogun.”

“On what charge?”

“Despoiling the Kitsune shrine and binding the Kitsune spirit, and causing unnecessary damage to the woodland around the shrine, stirring up the local Tengu, and using black magic to steal the spirits of Yamato for your own evil purposes.”

“Anything else?” I asked him sarcastically.

“That’s enough to be going on with. You’ll come with me quietly, or you’ll come with me dead. Your choice.”

“You seem to feel the need for a lot of backup,” I commented, running my eye over the two hundred or so mounted mercenaries.

“We don’t take risks when dealing with unknown outsiders. Come on, you and your friends must be brought before the Shogun.”

“I don’t think so,” I said quietly. “My friends and I are staying right where we are. We have a job to do in this land. We’re here to cleanse the land of the taint you call the Kanosuru. The Kitsune spirit of the shrine was infested with the Kanosuru. I cleansed the taint from the shrine and...”

“He resists! Kill him!” screeched the priest.

“Last chance,” warned the samurai, but there was a look in his eyes, just a quiver of doubt.

I looked him in the eye and shook my head, slowly.

He shrugged. “A pity.” Two steps took him back to his horse, and he leaped up onto it and wheeled it around, riding hard up the hill away from us. The priest threw me a malevolent look over his shoulder and followed.

It was clear to everyone what would happen next. I reached for the Persona of Ironside, and as I did so, someone blew a horn high up on the hill. The monstrous tigers reared up, the terrible riders screamed their battlecries and shook their weapons in the air, and all two hundred of them charged down the hill toward me.

Heat ran through me like liquid fire in my veins as the white armor of the Ironside Persona snapped into place around me. My two-handed axe was in my hand. The Byakko had formed into a massive wedge, and I saw the lead rider, a giant of a man armed with a three yard lance bearing down upon me. Drawing on the troll strength, I leveled the pointed tip of the spear head straight at him and sprinted up the hill to meet his charge.

I ran fast, the huge weight of the Ironside armor feeling like nothing to my boosted strength. I saw fear blossom in the man’s eyes as he realized what was about to happen, but by then it was too late. I took the full force of his lance on my breastplate and it exploded into a million pieces. The impact rattled my teeth but did me no other damage. Not so for him. I braced, and his own unstoppable momentum drove his monstrous mount onto the cruel spike which graced the head of my axe. It slammed up through the creature’s mouth and into its brain.

The monster dissolved into a thick cloud of white smoke, and the rider crashed to the ground. I swung my axe but he dropped and rolled, springing to his feet and leaping away from me. He dropped the smashed shaft of his lance and swept out his sword, coming at me with a ferocious two-handed swing. Holding my axe with a hand at the base and one at the head, I caught his sword blow and turned it with the axe shaft, then shoulder-barged him with the massive shoulder plate of my armor.

With my axe in my right hand, I swung my gauntleted left forearm into his face as he tried to recover his balance. Blood exploded from his nose and his helmet flew off. At the back of his head, there was a sudden squirming of black. Was it the Festering, or was it just his hair? I didn’t have time to find out. I hefted my axe and brought it down on his head with a blow that almost cut him in half.

Around me, the Byakko mercenaries with their tiger spirit mounts swarmed like white sea foam. I felt a slamming of claws on my back as one of the tigers leaped at me, and I used my sheer weight and bulk in the Ironside suit to unbalance the monster, then I caught a handful of its harness and shoved it down the hill. Monster and rider separated, both crashing and tumbling down the slope toward the house.

Two riders charged me, lances leveled at my helmet. I swung my axe left and right, knocking the lances away, then hit the rider on the right in the belly with my axe blade, shearing through his armor and sending him tumbling over onto the ground clutching at his belly. The rider on the left wheeled his mount, trying to bring his great curve-bladed naginata spear to bear on me.

I leaped up onto the back of his tiger, head butted him and then punched him in the neck with a gauntleted fist. I felt the bones of his neck crunch, and he tumbled off the tiger’s back, blood spurting from his mouth.

The tiger was less than pleased with my presence on his back, but I threw my great axe onto my back and gathered up the creature’s reins. It responded reluctantly, and I wheeled it around, getting a look over the battlefield.

The fight had carried me up the hill away from the house. I kicked the tiger and moved back downhill just as another three mounted warriors charged me from the right, their lances lowered at my mount. I summoned my twin axes and let go of the reins, and the tiger charged into his fellows. He seemed to have decided that I was his rider now, and he lashed out at the other tigers with his massive claws, swiping to the left to kill a man and his mount while I took down the two men on my right with my twin axes.

The tiger he had killed vanished in thick white smoke which filled the air and drifted across the battlefield, but the tigers whose riders I had just killed fell in beside me. I felt a strange pricking at the edge of my awareness, a warm, questioning sensation, similar to the feeling of a Persona waiting to be used.

All around me, a mass of the Byakko mercenaries were circling, but they looked scared now, glancing at one another as if they feared to attack.

A voice spoke to me, mind-to-mind, a deep voice like the boom of the sea.

“Yasei,” it said. “My name is Yasei. If you will free us from our captivity, we will do your bidding.”

It was the tiger that I was riding speaking to me, and as I glared around at my enemies, he turned his huge head and rolled one eye at me. The other two had fallen in beside me, one on either side. I didn’t have to think about it.

“Yasei,” I said. “I will free you and your kin. Kill the men.”

“Gladly,” his voice rumbled in my mind.

He reared up to charge, and suddenly there was a loud whistling in the air around us as a flight of hurtling projectiles cut through the air. It was a flight of shuriken stars, and twelve of the Byakko riders tumbled backward off their mounts, the deadly stars sticking out of their heads and chests. I looked around for Cara and saw a flash of black and red hurtling down the hill toward me.

I charged the circling mass of Byakko mercenaries as their freed mounts leaped forward to join me. They stood their ground, forcing their bound mounts forward to meet us with a crash of spears and claws on metal. I laid about with my axe, killing six men as their lances and swords scored and smashed against my armor, jolting me but causing no damage. Every tiger who was freed of his rider wheeled about and attacked the Byakko mercenaries, until I found myself charging up the hill toward Cara at the head of an ever-increasing wave of ferocious white tiger spirits.

Cara was holding her ground with her black straight sword now, in the midst of a cloud of thick white smoke. For a moment, I wondered where the smoke was coming from, and then I realized—the Byakko mercenaries, seeing that their bound mounts were turning on them, were killing the tigers before they could turn and join me. The tigers, when killed, turned into this strange mist-like substance. Now, a mass of fifty of the men were dismounted, and they held in a ragged rectangle of ten abreast and five deep. Cara had charged them leaving a trail of dead in her wake, and the rest of them had made a wall of pikes to try to hold her off.

Riding my new tiger mount Yasei, I thundered toward the braced line of pikes, but before I could reach them Cara had disengaged from the fight. She leaped in the air and backflipped three times to put a bit of distance between her and the front line, then flung a flight of shuriken stars, this time trailing comet tails of freezing air behind them.

They thudded into their targets and five men were instantly covered in thick ice. I saw her potion in her hand, a flash of bright yellow, and then three arrows were loosed at the frozen targets. Black smoke and gouts of dirty orange flame exploded outward from the men, and a rain of ice and charred flesh thudded to the ground around us.

From the left, a small unit of the remaining Byakko mercenaries who were still mounted were charging toward me. I wheeled Yasei’s head around and charged to meet them head on.

On impact, I leaped from Yasei’s back and flung myself at the leader of the mercenary company. He was armed with a long naginata polearm. I landed on his mount’s back, wrapped my left hand around the shaft of the naginata and wrapped my right hand around the man’s throat. His bound tiger mount reared up, flinging us both up into the air. I kept my grip on him, but he twisted as we crashed to the ground together and he landed on top of me. I brought my feet up and shoved him off me, and he let go of his naginata as he arched up and away, landing hard fifty feet away from me.

Behind me, the tigers were overcoming the soldiers. Away off to my right, Cara was dealing with the dismounted men in a thunder of explosions and flying ice. I focused all my attention on the dismounted leader in front of me and charged him, using his own naginata against him.

He pulled another naginata from the hand of a dead compatriot nearby and ran down the hill at me, screaming wildly. I spun, enjoying the heft of this new weapon, and knocked his first blow aside. We traded hits, circling each other, until I decided to finish it. I dropped the stolen naginata and reached for my Ironside shield.

Fear sprang into his eyes as the shield magically appeared, strapped onto my left forearm, and a one-handed war axe appeared in my right hand. I ran at him, knocking back one blow from his naginata and then bashing him hard with the shield. He dropped the pole arm and reached for his sword. I glanced up, hearing a thundering noise of heavy feet galloping toward me. It was Yasei.

“This one is mine,” boomed his voice in my mind, and I let him take the kill. His huge claws skewered the man through the belly, and he lifted the man up and tore him in half with his enormous teeth. Blood spattered my armor, hissing on the hot metal.

Yasei dropped one shoulder to the ground, and I leaped onto his back, grabbing the reins. Behind me, fully one hundred armored white tiger spirits now stood, teeth bared. The rumble of their growling shook the air around us.

I looked back to where Cara was, and found, to my surprise and delight, that what remained of the mercenary company were on their knees around her. Their hands were in the air, their weapons were on the ground, and they were bareheaded. Cara appeared to be magnanimously accepting their surrender. A little further up the hill, ashen faced, sat the priest and the samurai general on their noble-looking horses.

Below us, the whole hill was strewn with the corpses of the mercenaries, and the white smoke that came from the dead tigers floated in thick clouds over the ground. By the look of it, none had managed to get even close to the house. There was no sign of Toshiro, and I hoped he had taken himself inside to safety.

“Let’s go,” I said to Yasei. He walked with a heavy, dignified tread toward where Cara stood.

The remaining mercenaries cowered around her, less than thirty in total—the sole remainder of the ‘unbeatable’ Byakko company.

“Well, General Koshu,” I called up to the Samurai as we approached. “Have you anything more to say?”

“You... you will regret this!” he stammered. He was about to pull his horse’s head around and flee back up the valley, when the priest beside him spoke.

“Fool,” he said, in a surprisingly threatening voice for such a small, insignificant-looking man. “Fool! I will show you how to deal with these insolent swine. I... will... show... you...”

As his voice trailed off, I felt the familiar icy sensation in my belly. His voice had begun as a shrill, petulant squeal, but it deepened and expanded, adding layers and layers as if a huge hall full of people were shouting his words.

“We will have this land!” the voice roared, and in it there was every pitch imaginable, from the lowest guttural bellow to the highest lunatic screech.

“The Festering!” yelled Cara. “He is infested with the Festering!”

The priest was changing, growing, black mist swirling about him and coalescing on him as he transformed. His horse screamed, bucked, and then bolted in terror. The priest hung there in mid air, a wordless chant of a million voices building and pulsing through the valley.

“The Kanosuru!” yelled General Koshu in terror. He wheeled his horse and began to flee.

“Koshu! Stand your ground,” I yelled, then I turned my head and addressed the host of tigers behind me. “Stay where you are,” I told them, then rode Yasei over to where Cara stood. Koshu had checked his horse when he heard my voice, and now he and the remaining mercenaries all listened to my words as the priest’s hideous transformation continued.

“All of you!” I shouted. “Now you see the truth! The Kanosuru has infested your land, and you have been fooled by this man into fighting on the side of evil! Join with us now and make amends for fighting against us! Pick up your weapons and fight for the cleansing of your land!”

All but a few of the men leaped up and cheered, grabbing their helmets and weapons and sprinting away from the black cloud which contained the priest. Koshu himself wheeled his horse and rode toward me, but I could tell that the terror which always accompanied the Festering was taking its toll on all of them.

“Cara,” I shouted over the boom of the Festering’s chanting incantation, “your potion for resisting the fear! Do you have enough of it to treat these men?”

“I do,” she called back, “but I’m not sure I have the time!”

She sprang into action, giving some to General Koshu first, then doling out a drop onto the tongue of each man near here. I would have to hold off the priest if he attacked, but to my surprise, he didn’t do so immediately.

Darkness had filled the pleasant valley, and from all around there came a creaking, snapping, booming sound, like tree branches swaying and breaking in the wind. I looked around for the source of the noise, and all at once I saw hundreds of dark shadows coming up from the valley, but also pouring over the hill and down to join the others.

“It’s the trees!” I yelled over the racket. “The Festering has bound the trees!”

As we watched, the priest himself had transformed into a great ugly, deformed tree. Its wood was black and covered in suppurating wounds that leaked viscous green slime. From its branches, waves of Festering rolled out into the valley, and everything was being transformed into a gray, rotten, Festering version of itself. Only Toshiro’s house seemed immune, and as I glanced back, I saw the servants running back and forth inside. Defiant, they were hanging lanterns from the windows until the whole rambling building was ablaze with warm yellow light. I figured this was either a superstitious gesture, or the lanterns actually had some power to keep the Festering at bay.

“I’m done,” Cara said, running up to me. “I’ve treated everyone. They should be able to stand up to the enemy now.” She had removed her hood, and her blonde hair gleamed like a beacon in the filthy Festering darkness. All around, the trees were crowding toward us, and already they had formed a wall around the great horror that the priest of the Kitsune had transformed into.

“We’ll need to use everything we’ve got here,” I said to Cara.

“You think it’ll be enough?”

I flashed her a grin. “I’ve no intention of ending our adventures here, Cara. We’re just starting to have fun!”

She laughed, a clear, clean sound in that thick, dark air. The chanting of the Festering’s incantation stopped abruptly.

“Hop up,” I suggested, and Cara jumped up onto Yasei’s back behind me. Koshu had taken command of the remaining mercenaries, dismounting from his terrified horse and standing with them to lead them on foot. Both he and the mercenaries all glowed a faint yellow with the residual effect of the fear-dampening potion which Cara had given them.

“Fire’s going to be crucial in this fight,” I said. “Do you have enough fire potion?”

“That’s just it,” Cara said. “It’s remarkable—the fire potion regenerates just like the arrows and the shuriken stars. Even my fear blocking potion seemed not to run out. I didn’t think I had enough but the bottle just didn’t empty.”

“Incredible,” I said. “It sounds like we’ve only begun to see the power of the Personas.”

“How is it that you’ve managed to get the tigers on side?” Cara asked. “Was that a new ability you learned from the Personas?”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t the Personas. The tigers were enslaved to the mercenaries. The tigers are the Byakko, not the men. The men bound the Byakko against their will, entrapping them and forcing them to fight when they didn’t want to. This is Yasei, and he has pledged himself and his people to do my bidding if I free them of the hated mercenaries.”

“I’d say we’ve managed to do that,” she said, nodding toward the band of mercenaries. They now stood with a shield wall pointing up the hill to where the mass of dark tree demons pressed thickest. In their midst was the tall figure of the Festering tree which had been the monk. It seemed that every tree in the valley had been taken over by the Festering and had now turned into a demon. They were horrible to look at, twisted, deformed figures, only faintly humanoid, in all shapes and sizes. Evil faces with mad eyes stared out at us from among the branches.

All was still for a long moment. We were surrounded on all sides by the trees. Then, in a sudden rush, a host of armored Tengu poured shrieking from under the shadows of the branches. Like the Tengu we had fought at the shrine, they were somewhere between bird and man. Unlike those previous creatures, these were monstrously large and dressed up in heavy mail and some bits of armor plating. They were armed with long pikes, and they charged straight down the hill at us in a howling wave.

“Brace!” I shouted to the mercenaries, and they lowered their naginata spears ready for impact. “General Koshu,” I shouted, “hold your position there and pin them down!”

Then I shouted to the tigers, “fan out and hit them in the flank!”

I wheeled Yasei’s reins around and moved to the left as the rest of the tigers poured like a boiling river up the slope and crashed into the ranks of the mercenaries. The charging tigers were mired in the mercenaries’ stout spear wall off to the right, and the tigers smashed into the on the left and the center, driving them back toward the trees.

At that moment, the wall of tree demons lumbered forward.

“Time for your fire, Cara,” I called. “Can you fire from the back of a moving tiger?”

“Hey,” she said in my ear. “This is me we’re talking about.”

I laughed. “Hold on tight with your knees, then. This is going to be a bumpy ride.”

As the Tengu were being pushed back by the tigers on my left, the mercenary spear wall was beginning to collapse on the right. There, tree demons had reached the wall and were dealing death, sending men flying with massive limbs like primitive clubs. I wheeled Yasei to the left and charged in that direction, grabbing my axe as Cara loosed a flight of burning arrows at the trees which had still to reach the fight. Bright flames erupted from the trees she hit, illuminating the chaotic scene.

We crashed into the right flank of the mercenaries, and my Byakko’s massive claws tore through the Tengu in front of him. The tree demons were twice my height, but I took them on anyway. Throwing Yasei’s reins to Cara, I leaped from his back with my two-handed axe in my hands and set about the base of the nearest tree demons.

They were more brittle than real living wood, and I found with satisfaction that my axe head smashed through the lower limbs with ease. They were slow as well, much slower than me. All around me, Cara’s arrows set light to more and more of them, until the whole scene was lit up with garish yellow light and black smoke filled the air. The Tengu were afraid of the fire, and the mercenaries, though hard pressed, took heart when I relieved their right flank.

Cara drove a swathe through the Tengu, riding hard on the tiger’s back, and the mercenaries rallied around me as I chopped limbs from the trees and smashed holes in their lower trunks. They crashed at me with their limbs, but the Ironside armor deflected even the heaviest blows with ease.

The battle was shifting. The air was full of black smoke and the stench of burning, and everywhere there was a livid light from the fires. A tree demon shaped like a tall, thin man of enormous height, stooped and swung a massive limb at me. I took it off at the joint with one chop of my axe, and four mercenaries ran up to stick their naginata spears into its chest.

Two mercenaries were pinned down by a group of Tengu, and I switched to shield and one-handed axe to engage them, shield-bashing with one hand and chopping limbs off with the other. General Koshu had his huge samurai sword in his hand, and was surrounded by a mass of bodies of Tengu and smashed tree demons. Yasei and his tigers were pushing a solid wedge of white through the massed tree-demons up toward the top of the ridge, their massive claws and powerful teeth slashing and smashing a path through the monstrous trees.

But it was not over yet. Further up the hill, surrounded by the biggest and fiercest of the tree demons was the huge and terrible form of the central tree which had been the Kitsune priest. I knew we would have to take him out before this could be truly finished.

Cara was on foot again, and she came dashing through the battle to stand beside me. Her black sword ran with the bright blood of the Tengu.

“We have to kill the tainted priest tree!” I yelled over the din of the battle. “He’s controlling the others and summoning more by the minute. Cara, If you use your shuriken stars with ice, you can blast a way through, then I can get close enough to take him out with my axe!”

“We’ll have to move fast! The mercenaries can’t hold on much longer!”

“And the tigers are losing their fight. They’ve over-extended themselves. We need to finish this.”

Further down the hill, Yasei had led the Byakko tigers in a mighty charge against the tree demons who had crowded the edge of the lakeside. They had made some headway, carving through them and pushing on up the ridge toward the top, but behind them, new forces of the enemy had hurried up from the shadows beyond the lake and were pressing their rear. Thick clouds of white smoke hanging in the air showed me that they had been suffering losses.

The remaining mercenaries had rallied around General Koshu, and the Tengu who pressed them seemed reluctant to attack them, but new tree demons were coming up from the very ground around the central tree, and they moved laboriously down toward the Koshu and the mercenaries.

We moved up the slope toward the great tree that had been the Kitsune priest. There was no sign of the priest, so I figured the Festering had consumed him completely, leaving only this demonic tree that was the core of the Festering in this area, the heart of the taint. The monstrous limbs swayed and swung over the heads of the humanoid tree demons who clustered around its base. The tree demons chattered and howled, bare-branched monstrosities with red and yellow cat’s eyes and mouths full of jabbering teeth.

The Tengu fled before us, but the trees did not. As we pushed up the hill, they attacked us from both sides, hurling rocks at us from a distance or running in close to try to smash us with their huge limbs. Roots sprang up from the ground to wrap around our feet and try to drag us down, but Cara slashed them with her black sword and I cut them back with my twin axes.

After a little while climbing, we saw the monstrous heart tree a little way away.

“Time to end this,“ I said to Cara.

“Let’s do it,” she replied. “I’ll cover you!”

I lowered my head and began to run.

Around me, white ice-bound shuriken stars flew from Cara’s hands, slamming into the tree demons who tried to attack me from either side. I plowed through the ones who got in my way, using my two-handed axe to smash their brittle wood into fragments.

After having left a trail of frozen demons behind us, Cara fired off a volley of flaming arrows. A rapid chain of explosions thundered through the valley, bright flames lighting up the darkness which emanated from the Festering heart tree.

We were nearly there. The heart tree loomed up in front of me, and Cara put her back to it, alternating ice shuriken stars and fire arrows to hold off the demons who rushed up the hill toward us. A glance around the battlefield showed me that our effort was paying off. The trees who swarmed around the field had broken off their fights with the Byakko and the mercenaries and were all converging on us in an attempt to protect the heart tree from which they drew their power.

I raised my right foot, channeled all the troll-strength power I could muster, and brought it down on the rocky ground. The force of the stomp sent a shockwave expanding around us. Tree demons flew backward, and Cara loosed a rapid-fire circle of arrows that created a ring of burning all around us. The tree demons who tried to pass were caught in the flames and went up like torches. I hefted my axe and charged the heart tree.

With a great swing, I smashed one of the malformed buttress-roots that supported the base of the tree. It shattered like glass, sending fragments everywhere. Cara flung a flight of ice shrunken stars into the tree, and patches of ice spread across the twisted and knotty bark. I swung again, this time burying my axe in the body of the wood. A shudder ran through it, and I leaped back as claylike branches swung at me, scratching my armor but not damaging me. Fire arrows thudded into the ice patches, and the subsequent explosions ripped chunks from the tree. I dived in again, raining blow after blow onto the damaged wood.

Suddenly, the bark began to crack. Bright light shone out from the cracks, and the outer shape of the tree crumbled. With horror, I saw hands reaching out from the cracks in the tree; hundreds of hands, clawing and groping their way into the world like some horrible demonic birthing.

The tree finally exploded outward in a blaze of cold blue light, and a swarm of humanoid creatures poured out from the space it had occupied. They looked like humans, but they ran on all fours like animals. Their heads were bald, and they were naked except for ragged loincloths. Their eyes blazed with madness, and they swarmed up on us with their hands outstretched and their mouths open.

“What are they?” Cara yelled in disgust as she swung her sword from its sheath, cutting down the countless hungry creatures as they tried to lay their ragged hands on her.

The Byakko Yasei’s voice boomed in my mind, answering her question, and I repeated his words to her.

“They are Gaki, the starving spirits of men who have been condemned to an eternity of hunger and thirst as punishment for their greed and selfishness in life.”

That prompted another thought—the destruction of the Festering heart tree must have opened up a gateway to the spirit realm to let these starving ghosts come into the world.

I stamped the ground again, pushing all the strength I could into the impact and sent a shockwave through the crowding Gaki and tree demons, and in the momentary lapse in the attack which that bought me, I saw that where the tree had stood, there was now a crack rent in the ground. Cold blue light shone up from it, and a steady stream of the Gaki spirits were clambering up through it and out into the world.

There were too many of them even for us. I glanced up, and saw that the Byakko were now separated from us by a wave of Gaki and tree demons. Down below, the Gaki were streaming toward the house.

Suddenly, I saw a figure appear on the porch of Toshiro’s house. It was a tall figure, dressed in bright yellow samurai armor, with a tall helmet and a sword in each hand.

“It’s Toshiro!” I shouted, as I recognized the relaxed, prepared gait of the old samurai warrior. He raised his swords into the air and the swarming Gaki fell back, then he charged them, swinging and twirling from left to right in a deadly dance.

At the same time, with a great roar, Yasei and his remaining Byakko charged in from the position they had gained above the center of the battle. General Koshu and the twenty mercenaries who had survived this far began to fight their way back toward Toshiro and the house.

“We have to close that crack, Cara!” I shouted. “Come on!”

We ran over to the gaping rent in the rock, hacking our way through the screaming Gaki who poured like an unholy tide from underground. With each swing of my axe I cut ten of them in half; another ten scuttled up to take their place. We reached the crack, stamping on the crawling Gaki to get there.

“How do we do this?” Cara yelled to me.

“I don’t know, but... do you feel that?”

There was a tugging at the edge of my awareness. It was the Ironside Persona, reaching toward the Kitsune Persona.

“I feel it!” Cara said, “but I don’t know how to use it!”

“Let’s buy ourselves a little time! Use ice and fire to blast the Gaki inside the crack!”

We looked down into the gap. It dropped down, a long, deep shaft with cold, vicious blue light shining up and lighting the whole scene. At the bottom of the shaft there was a gargantuan cavern, and every inch of it crawled with Gaki and other, larger shapes that I couldn’t make out. The Gaki poured up the walls up of the shaft, crawling up it on all fours like ants.

Cara sent a flurry of ice shuriken stars down the shaft and followed up with a blast of fire arrows. The resulting explosion smashed hundreds of climbing Gaki to pieces, slowing the relentless upward flow. That bought us time to explore the pulling we felt between our Personas. I reached out and took Cara’s hand, and we stood over the crack which seemed to lead directly into the realm of hell.

“We have to combine the power of the Personas,” I called. “Can you feel how to do it?”

“I... yes, yes I can. I don’t know how I know, but I do!”

I felt her reaching back to me with the power of the Kitsune Persona, and then she cried out wordlessly as something fundamental clicked into place. As if a key had turned in a lock and a door swung open, Cara and I were aware of each other to a level of intimacy which hadn’t even been reached during our lovemaking.

The Personas combined strength and stealth, axe and sword, the power of Ironside and the power of Kitsune. It was an incredible feeling, and instinctive understanding flooded through Cara and me at the same time. Our hands were joined, but we both raised our weapons in our other hands, and lightning flashed around us. It crackled in mighty forks from the black sky and from the earth around us before meeting at the tip of my axe and Cara’s sword. We both felt it building to a peak.

“Now!” I roared, and together we brought our weapons down, flinging the mass of raw power into the chasm.

Lightning ricocheted off the stone walls, and the climbing Gaki fell by the thousand tumbling down the walls of the shaft and knocking others off as they fell. The lighting held, crackling down into the chasm, and then we felt the earth shift under our feet. There was a rolling boom, and the great chasm slammed shut.

We leaped back from the shockwave, then glanced around the battlefield. There was no time to congratulate ourselves on our victory; we had stopped the flow of new enemies into the valley but there were still many hundreds of swarming Gaki and hundreds of tree demons too. Toshiro and the mercenaries were fighting together now, but they were being pushed back toward the house. Yasei and the Byakko were fighting near the top of the ridge, but they had been driven upward as well.

“We have to try and save Toshiro!” I shouted to Cara. We turned in that direction and sprinted down the hill toward the house, but at that moment, there was a sudden ringing of horns that echoed across the valley. Everyone, friend and foe alike, stopped fighting and glanced up in the direction of the horn blast.

There were riders on the ridge.

A great mass of cavalry had appeared there, led by a tall figure in bright armor with a high helmet and a trailing blue banner. As I watched, this figure raised a spear and cried out an order, and the whole mass of riders formed up and charged into the valley.

The Byakko, their morale boosted by the appearance of new allies, redoubled their attack, smashing through the gathered tree demons in front of them. Below, Toshiro gave a great shout and threw himself at the massed Gaki and the remainder of the armored Tengu. The mercenaries and General Koshu followed behind him. Cara and I smashed into the flank of the group that were packed outside the house, and the swarm there was cut to pieces.

Sunlight flooded the valley, as the hosts of enemies broke and ran screaming from us. They had nowhere to go. The great cavalry wedge swept over them like a wave over the sand.

Yasei and his Byakko limped their way toward the house, and Toshiro raised a hand and pushed his helmet back from his face. He stepped up to me and clasped my hand in a warrior’s grip. Cara hugged him.

We turned to watch as the riders mopped up the fleeing enemies. It didn’t take long. They formed up again and stopped a little way up the hill. In the bright sunlight that followed the darkness, their red armor shone like flame. One figure detached itself from the group and rode toward the house, slowly. Yasei, whose Byakko were gathered around him a little way off, let out a low rumble from his throat.

“Who are they?” asked Cara under her breath.

“They look like a masterless company,” Toshiro said. “That blue banner bears no lord’s insignia. I don’t know what it can mean.”

The leader advanced toward us, a tall armored figure with a full-face helmet. As the rider drew up before us, an armored gauntlet reached up to remove the helmet.

It was a woman.

Her oil-black hair tumbled free from her helmet, and she shook her head like a cat coming out of water to free it. She was stunningly beautiful, with high cheekbones, full red lips, and very large, dark eyes. Her tan skin and dark eyes showed that she was one of the people of Yamato. She looked around at us in silence for a moment. Her eyes fell on me, and her gaze ran appraisingly up and down my armor. I reached up and removed my helmet, and her eyes widened in surprise. My fair skin and hair marked me immediately as being not from Yamato. Then she smiled and looked down at Toshiro.

“Well, my old friend,” she said. “What have you been getting involved in?”

“Lady Kai,” Toshiro said as he bowed his head to her. At the mention of the woman’s name, General Koshu and the mercenaries all muttered among themselves briefly, before they bowed their heads as well.

Cara and I glanced quickly at each other. This woman had certainly changed the course of the battle. I was grateful to her, but for all that, I didn’t feel inclined to bow to her. Cara and I were Saxen; in our land, to bow to another was the lowest form of subjugation. No warrior would do it, even in a situation like this.

“Thank you for your help in the fight,” I said, stepping forward. “You arrived just in the nick of time. Where have you come from? Everyone else here seems to recognize your name, but I’m new to this land.”

A smile pulled at the corner of her sensuous mouth. “That much is clear,” she said, eyeing my armor and my face.

Toshiro came forward and spoke to me. “Lady Kai is leader of the Broken Sword company, an independent warrior group from one of the far northern islands. We... we know each other of old.”

“That we do.” Lady Kai jumped from her horse to the ground in a fluid, graceful motion.

I looked her up and down. She was nearly of a height with me, dressed in light armor of linked red-dyed leather and lacquered plates. It covered her enough to give protection, but still left a lot of skin open to the elements. A sheer expanse of smooth, muscular leg plunged from her hip to her calf-high boots. The top half of her armor covered the front of her breasts, but left their sides and her cleavage very visible.

“If I may,” Toshiro said, “I suggest we go inside with Lady Kai and take some refreshments, and we can explain the situation to her.”

“I think I’ll let you do that, Toshiro,” I said. “You can fill lady Kai in as well as I can, and I guess you two have some catching up to do. I’ll see to things out here.”

Keen as I was to learn more about this mysterious and beautiful samurai woman, I was even more eager to find out what upgrades we could get after our recent battle. I could feel my Renown nearly overflowing, and there was a suggestion of something else which I could not quite put my finger on. By the tension in Cara’s stance and the gleam in her eyes, I could tell that she felt it too.

“Very well,” Toshiro said. “Come and find us at the training court when you’re ready.”

When he had gone, I turned to General Koshu, who bowed low to me and started to stumble through an abject apology.

“Please, General, there’s no need for that,” I said, reaching a hand to his shoulder to raise him up. “You were only following orders, and when you realized your mistake, you made up for your error and joined the right side.”

The General bowed his head to me again, and I caught a glimpse of his grateful expression.

“And that goes for all of you, too,” I continued, turning to the mercenaries. “You did the right thing in the end, and that’s what counts. Now, help to begin clearing up the mess of the battle. It’ll take many days to do, but you should make a start. You’ll want to collect your own dead to begin with.”

I put General Koshu in charge of the mercenaries and left them to get on with it. They were a very different sight from the arrogant warriors they had been earlier. Only 20 of the original 200 remained, and they were a chastened lot.

Once they had left me and begun their task, Yasei came over and stood before me. Now that we were not in battle, I had the chance to look at him more closely. He was magnificently strong, a huge, powerful animal with a thick coat of white fur, striped with black. Blood, mud, and soot blotched his coat, and he had a long, thin slash running down his flank. Of the Byakko who were with him, only 50 remained of the original 200. Still, they had fared much better than the mercenaries who’d rode them into battle.

“Leofwine,” Yasei said, his voice booming inside my mind as before. “You have freed me and my people from our enslavement. What would you wish of us? Some of our number desire to return home to the north, but fully 20 wish to remain with you. I am one of those who would wish to stay. We have seen the taint of the Kanosuru, and we would help you drive it from this land.”

“I’ll discuss it with my partner,” I said, and Yasei bowed his head.

I walked a little ways off with Cara, so the tigers wouldn’t overhear.

Before I could start to explain what Yasei had said to me, Cara spoke.

“It seems like a good idea to have these warrior beasts with us,” she commented.

“You can hear Yasei’s voice too?” I asked in surprise.

She nodded. “In my mind. How could that be?”

I considered for a moment. “I think it’s something to do with how we share the Personas. We’re bound together now, you and I. Yasei speaks to us in the same place as the Persona binding happens; the spirit realm.”

“Well,” Cara said as we watched them go, “when I first saw them, I never thought they would end up being on our side.”

“Nor did I. But I’ll take Yasei up on his offer.”

With Cara by my side, I returned to the tiger commander.

“Those who wish to leave may do so,” I said. “Of those who remain, well, you say there are 20 of you. There are 20 of the mercenary riders remaining too. Would your Byakko be willing to take the mercenaries as riders again? Freely?”

Yasei paused for a moment to consider my proposition. It was a weighty thing which I was asking, for him and his kin to not only follow me into battle against the Festering, but to do so while mounted by their former captors.

“We would,” Yasei answered after a few moments. “But, there is a condition.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to make a deal without qualification,” I returned. “Tell me, what else do you need?”

“A special kind of rider.” Yasei’s eyes glinted with fervor. “You, Leofwine. I would wish to have you as a rider. Permanently, if you’ll have me.”

A grin tugged at my lips. I glanced at Cara, and she seemed equally impressed with the offer. My men back in Saxe would have been blown away to hear a beast such as this speaking, but to have one accept me as a rider permanently? It was likely to make some heads explode if I ever had the chance to ride Yasei through Saxe with my men watching.

“Very well,” I replied. “I’m honored.” Instinctively, I inclined my head to Yasei. It was a small bow, but for some reason with this noble creature, it did not feel wrong. It felt like a mark of mutual respect rather than of subjugation.

“We are weary and wish to rest now,” Yasei said. “After we have rested, those who wish to depart will do so, and the rest will stay. Call me when you need me.”

He turned his huge form and lumbered away from me, off toward the lake. As he went away, the others followed him. Every single mighty beast passed close by me, and each one dipped his massive head to me as he passed.

“It seems that we’ll have an army greater than any we commanded in Saxe,” Cara said.

“Baby steps,” I said with a smile. “Still, the warriors of this land are worthy of the name. They are almost as skilled in combat as our people.”

“Almost,” Cara said before she stepped forward to kiss me on the mouth.

I returned her kiss and held her to me for a few moments. It felt good to have bonded with her in this way. For so long, we had both desired each other, but fulfilling our passions had taken traveling to this world where we weren’t beholden to our oaths.

“What did you think of Lady Kai?” Cara asked me, and I could hear some hidden meaning in her words.

“A great warrior,” I said. As my next words came, I fought off a smile. “Wonderful breasts, and her legs shine like bronze.”

“Ah, I noticed those, too. Do you think she would be open to the customs of Saxe?”

“We’ve barely known her for a few minutes and already you’re thinking of her sharing our bed?” I asked in mock outrage.

Cara punched me playfully on the chest. “Don’t think I can’t see what you’re thinking, Leo. You might have only entered me last night, but I have fought alongside you, drank mead into the early hours of the morning, and laughed with you for many years.”

“That’s true,” I said. “Then, can you tell me what I’m thinking now?”

I placed a hand on my belt and stared into her eyes.

“Not sex,” Cara mused. “Power.”

“That’s right,” I said with a broad grin. “Come, let us see what we have gained from our increase in Renown.”

Cara and I walked down the valley together, away from the house and the debris of the battle. When the Festering had been driven away from the valley, the trees had transformed back into their regular forms. They were spread out, and between them the tall grass waved in the slight breeze. Birds fluttered to and fro in the branches, and the sun shone down through the leaves to dapple the ground.

We walked for ten minutes, until we could no longer see the battlefield. Stopping in a clearing, we faced each other.

“Are you ready?” she asked me.

I nodded.

Excitement flashed into Cara’s eyes, and my spirits mirrored her enthusiasm. Together, we reached for the Personas.

Instantly, the glade changed. It was as if we had been transported to a different version of the same place. Instead of the sunny morning, night sky and a net of bright stars hung over us. Instinctively, I knew this was the same spirit realm where I had met Ironside and the Kitsune, the place where I’d received the Personas from them.

There was a stealthy rustling noise, and a dark figure approached us from the shade of the trees. I heard Cara’s intake of breath, and she reached out and took my hand. I squeezed her hand reassuringly. A tree spirit emerged from the trees and marched slowly toward us.

He was as tall as a man, but much broader. He looked like an ancient, wind-blasted tree that had seen too many winters. Hidden inside his branches, there was the suggestion of a wise face, but no detail could be seen except for bright green eyes glowing steadily at us through the dimness. The tree spirit was a strange presence, but there was nothing of the horror of the demons we had fought earlier. He was very strange, but he was not evil.

“You have cleansed the valley of the Festering,” he said in a rumbling, creaking voice. “Soul Binder, we have not seen your kind for many generations, but now we can offer you something in return for your service to us. The Festering taint is abroad in this land. We wish to see it driven out. I bestow upon you the Persona of the Tree Spirits to aid you in your quest.”

I heard a rustling sound like leaves in a rising wind, and a floral scent washed over me and permeated me. Emerald light shone out all around me, then washed from my fingertips back up my arms and into my body.

There was a sudden flash of light, and as quickly as that, we were back in the glade. The spirit realm was gone, and all was as it had been.

Cara blinked, and her eyes widened. “Oh, Leo! You’re wearing a new Persona!”

I looked down at myself. I was dressed in green and brown armor of light leather. It was similar to the samurai armor I’d seen elsewhere in this land, with interlocking plates woven together and hung over a coat of light mail. In my hand, there was a long wooden staff.

The instinctive knowledge of the Persona was in me, and I knew that this staff was called a bokken. Wood it may be, but in the hands of a skilled practitioner, it could be as deadly as a sword. Looking closer, I saw that it had a string of intricate characters carved into the top.

Cara gazed at me admiringly. “It looks good,” she said. “But what does it do?”

“Let’s find out.”

I lifted the bokken and whirled it experimentally around my head. The wood seemed to have a life of its own. I felt deep knowledge of a form transmitted to me through the staff. The bokken danced around me as I guided it through the martial forms. It made a satisfying whoosh as I swung it around my head.

“There’s something more…” I could feel some promise of greater power from the staff. It tingled in my hands, pushing me to take the potential of this new weapon further.

Again, listening to my instincts, I took one step forward and slammed the base of the staff into the ground. Power surged from my heart, out through my shoulders, down my arms, into my hands, then into the staff. There was a crackling sound, and green light flashed and flickered around my hands, coalescing into leaping forks of emerald lightning, which danced around my fingers.

I concentrated on it and directed its flow down into the earth.

There was a thunderous boom and the green lightning spread across the ground in an expanding circle away from the base of the staff. It ran around Cara’s feet like water around a stone, but when it hit my feet, it ran back up my body, creating a loop of power which blasted between me and the staff. The circle continued to expand away from me, and I could see the tall grass waving and swaying as the emerald lightning danced up and down it.

I pushed further, forcing more power into the spell. The lightning increased in intensity until the whole clearing was full of it. I knew that if I willed it, this raw power would cause incredible damage to any enemies within the circle. With a twist of my will, I manipulated the spell once more. An explosion of green light blasted up within the range of the circle and into the sky, and the spell dispersed.

Cara let out a low whistle. She was standing a little away from me, looking impressed. “That will be good against large swathes of weak enemies!” she said.

I nodded my agreement, feeling well pleased with this new attack. “I wish I’d had this when we were fighting the Gaki. Imagine the slaughter I would have inflicted upon those demonic hosts if I’d been equipped with this. The thought makes my heart burn for battle.”

“Well, you didn't do too badly even without it,” Cara said with an admiring smile. “You might not be able to go back to that battle, but I’m sure you’ll have plenty of future opportunities for battle. I wonder. . . how would the Tree Persona manifest with me?”

I laughed. The excitement in her eyes was very attractive. “There’s only one way to know. Let’s see if we can manage the swap as smoothly as we did earlier.”

“All right.”

Cara reached toward me with her awareness of the Personas. As she did so, I focused my awareness and reached back toward her. There was a snap in the air, like a whip cracking, and I found myself wearing again my version of the Kitsune Persona’s shinobi aspect. I was not wearing the headgear, but the rest of the costume felt pleasantly familiar as it slipped into place around me. As before, there was a sensation of coolness that washed through my body as I took on the Persona. I raised my eyes to look at Cara and smiled in admiration at what I saw.

“You said it looked good on me,” I said, “but I think it looks even better on you!”

The forest green garment which now clad her looked as if it had been perfectly tailored for her figure. In a way, it was similar to the way that the shinobi aspect of the Kitsune Persona manifested on her, a figure-hugging costume of rich, flexible fabric, with a deep hood. The supple leather boots were the dark brown color of wet tree bark. A band of green cloth covered her mouth and nose. The neat green top covered her breasts and left her belly bare, but the skin of her midriff was painted with lines of green stripes. They were like those of a tiger and ran away from her navel.

Across her shoulders was a bow, different from the small recurve bow which she usually had. It was very tall and long, similar to those that the hunter tribes of Saxe sometimes used. I knew from experience that a bow of that size would have incredible range.

At her hip, her potion belt was in place, but now it was made of green leather. A neat pack rested on her back, and at her belt hung a twinned pair of long, white-bladed knives. In her hand, instead of the bokken, she gripped a staff that looked at first glance like a humble walking stick. As she held it up, however, I saw the same carved inscription on the top, and I knew that it would deliver a lightning blast just as effectively as the bokken.

“Try the bow,” I encouraged her, since my version of this particular Persona had not included a bow.

The staff leaped out of her hand and affixed itself to the pack, out of the way. At the same time, the bow flipped through the air and appeared in her hands. I stepped to the side and watched as she retrieved an arrow from the quiver and readied it to fire.

“It’s telling me something,” she said wonderingly. “The Persona itself is telling me about the power of the bow... Ah!”

Cara laughed out loud as she fired the arrow. In a similar way as with the shuriken stars, the single arrow became two, then three, then four. The four arrows thudded into a tree within an inch of each other.

“I can do a spread as well...” she said as she pulled another arrow out. This time, when she fired it, the four arrows spread out to hit four separate trees. Cara’s eyes sparkled as she turned to me, placing the bow back on her back.

“I’m going to try the lightning spell,” she breathed, gripping the staff. She whirled it in mid air and slammed it to the ground. There was a thunderclap as an explosion of emerald lightning spread from her hands, through the staff, and out across the ground like ripples in a pool, then dispersed.

We stood, breathless, facing each other.

“Thank you, Leo,” she said quietly. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d never have been able to access this power.”

I smiled at her. It felt great to see how happy she was with our partnership.

“I think the Tree Spirit Persona works well for you, Cara. I am content with using the Ironside and Kitsune Personas. Perhaps you can keep this one? I may ask you to borrow it sometimes, though.”

She nodded. “It feels like it was made for me.”

“Let’s see if there are any upgrades we can get,” I suggested.

She came over and stood by me, and together we reached out and brought up the diagram for upgrading the Personas. This was the first time we had looked at this since Cara had joined me in her ability to access the Personas.

“The view has changed!” she exclaimed in surprise.

She was right. On the left, there was my Renown counter, looking like a tall tube of glass, filled with buttery yellow light. On the right, there was a new one, this one filled with green light. We both knew instinctively that this was Cara’s Renown. Between the two, we now saw three Personas: Ironside, Kitsune, and the Tree Spirit. These looked like scale models of each outfit, about three feet tall, hanging in mid-air.

“Do you notice,” I said to Cara, “that for Ironside and Kitsune, the diagram shows the combat aspect in the form that they manifest on me, but for the Tree Spirit Persona, it shows the manifestation that comes when you wear it?”

“I hadn’t noticed,” she said, “but I see it now. What do you think it means?”

“I think it’s showing us that the Tree Spirit Persona is meant for you. The spirit must have chosen you to bear it.”

“I. . . I don’t know what to say.”

I put an arm around her and squeezed her shoulders. “Reach for it. Let’s see what kind of upgrades are available for your new Persona.”

Cara reached out and touched the image of the Tree Spirit armor. It faded, showing the now-familiar diagram of three options.

The three options presented to us for the Tree Spirit were the bow, the staff, and a clear green crystal which shone with a clean light. Cara reached immediately toward the green crystal which sat on the right of the row. She held her hand over it, and it shone out for a moment.

“Can you feel what it does?” I asked her gently.

“Only just. It’s a strange sensation.”

She waited for a moment, and I stayed quiet, wanting to give her time to learn the way of perceiving the available upgrades for herself.

After a moment, I heard her catch a breath.

“I see it now,” she said. “It’s similar to the Ironside upgrade which you picked after our last battle. This green crystal will give me the ability to collect more Renown from kills when I’m wearing this Persona. That way, I’ll be able to get more upgrades each time I earn Renown.”

“A useful skill,” I said. “Give up a little now for more in the future.”

She moved her hand to the left, hovering over the staff and then the bow in turn. “These are harder. It’s difficult to see exactly what these upgrades do.”

“Don’t worry. It will come to you in time. Just relax and let yourself discover what you can feel about them in your own way.”

I was proud of her as I saw her do as I suggested. She let out a long, slow breath, and I saw her shoulders drop as she let the tension go out of them. A moment later, she cried out, sounding pleased.

“It’s the spell! The lightning spell. This one is giving me the option of upgrading the lightning spell to a more powerful version.”

“What about the other one?” I asked.

She moved her hand over to the image of the bow. “Interesting,” she said after a moment. “One of these is a range bonus, but there are other options. I can fire arrows more accurately over a greater distance, and another adds elemental damage to the arrows. It’s difficult to decide.” She glanced up with me with doubt in her eyes. “What do you think I should do, Leo?“

“I think you should decide for yourself. Ultimately, it’s up to you. Any upgrade will be good. Which one would you like the most?“

“The one that allows me to collect more Renown when I’m wearing this Persona,“ she said with a firm nod. “As you say, all upgrades are good, and that one will allow me to get more upgrades quicker in the long term.”

“That sounds like a sensible choice to me,” I said encouragingly.

She smiled at me, took a breath, and reached for the green gem.

It swirled and blazed with green light as Cara laid her hand upon it. I heard her gasp, and her face was a picture of pleasure and satisfaction as she felt the upgrade take effect. The Renown in her pool glowed as some of it drained away into the Tree Spirit Persona.

“Does it always feel so good when you add the upgrades?” she asked, smiling.

I nodded. “Every time I’ve done it, it’s given me a really pleasurable sensation.”

She grinned wickedly at me, showing her perfect white teeth. “Reminds me of something else I felt recently,” she said with a laugh.

I smiled back, enjoying her pleasure in the new power she had discovered.

“You still have some Renown left to use,” I pointed out.

“I do, don’t I?” Her excitement grew. “I thought the crystal upgrade would have consumed it all. I’ll have a look in more detail at what’s available for the bow.”

She reached toward the image of the longbow. When she held her hand in place over it, the image faded to review three new options. On the left was a symbol representing fire. In the middle, was a symbol representing ice. On the right was an arrow. She held her hands over these symbols one by one.

She pointed to the arrow symbol. “This is the range bonus.” Then she gestured at the fire and ice symbols. “These represent the elemental damage types which can be added to the bow.”

“You wouldn’t need the fire upgrade,” I said, “because you can already do that with your potions. How about taking the ice upgrade?“

She shook her head. “We already have the ability to use ice with the shuriken stars, and we can combine those with my fire arrows to create explosions. I don’t think we need to double down on any of those just now. I’ll pick the range and accuracy bonus instead.”

As had happened when she picked the crystal upgrade, the image of the bow glowed green and spun when she touched it. Again, she let out a groan of pleasure and shuddered as the sweet feeling of upgrading power flowed over her body and through the Persona which she was wearing. The longbow on her back glowed as well, a bright pattern of light flickering over the dark wood of its long shaft. Cara’s Renown counter drained down to empty as the light flowed into the image of the bow.

“Are you going to try it out?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not until we’ve finished upgrading. I want to see what you’re going to get as well. Let’s see what’s available for the shinobi aspect of the Kitsune Persona.“

I nodded, pleased that she was still keen to see me get upgrades despite being able to get them for herself. This kind of power might corrupt some individuals and turn them inward to themselves, but not so with Cara. She was all about the team.

With one hand, I reached for the image of the black costume which I was currently wearing. I tapped it, and it faded to reveal the three options. One was the familiar green crystal, and I knew straight away that upgrade would allow me to gather more Renown when making kills with the Kitsune Persona. But it was the other two options that immediately caught my interest.

In the middle floated the image of a strange weapon. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was about the size of a one-handed war axe, with a short wooden handle like a truncheon, but instead of an axe’s wide, flat blade, it had a long hooked curving blade like a scythe, tapering to a vicious point. Attached to the top of the truncheon was a long chain with a spiked mace head on the end. I reached for it and felt the knowledge of what it was flow from the Kitsune Persona to my mind.

“Kusarigama,” I muttered under my breath.

“What was that?” Cara asked.

I indicated the sickle-like weapon with the ball and chain on top. “That is what it’s called. Kusarigama. It’s a cunning weapon that can be used at a distance. The fighter can hit an enemy at range with the mace head, or the chain can be used to wrap around an enemy’s legs, hands, arms, or weapon.”

“That would be an exciting upgrade!” Cara said.

I had to agree.

“I think I’m going to choose it,” I said. “I know previously that I’ve chosen the upgrade which gets me more Renown, but this time, I think I’m going to treat myself to some new weapons to use with the shinobi aspect of the Kitsune Persona.”

I reached out and touched the Kusarigama image. The familiar sensation, somewhere between heat and cold, pleasurably flooded through my body and my outfit. The new weapons shimmered into existence, fitting neatly into a holder at the back of the belt that came with the Kitsune Persona.

Putting my hands down, I could feel the cold blades of the new weapons ready for me to use, the long chains and deadly mace heads wrapped up in a tight coil next to the blades.

“What’s that other option here?” Cara looked curiously at the upgrades diagram. I followed her gaze.

“This is very interesting,” I said as I held my hands over the image. It was a picture of a man’s face, but there was a black-gloved hand held over the eyes. At first, I wasn’t entirely certain what this was supposed to represent. As I thought about it, the realization slowly dawned. “It’s something to do with hiding from the enemy—I want to say invisibility, but that’s not quite right. It’s more like misdirection, a way of making the enemy look the other way.”

“That would make sense as an upgrade to such a stealth-focused Persona,” Cara said thoughtfully. “But how could it work? As you say, becoming completely invisible would be too much power even for a Persona, surely?”

“Yes, that’s right. It’s not invisibility. It’s more like the ability to make an enemy look elsewhere and not notice you. I think I’ll take this upgrade. After our next battle, I might choose to apply the increased Renown collection trait to this Persona.”

“I’m excited to see how the misdirection power works,” Cara said.

“Me too,” I said. “We haven’t had much need for anything like that just yet, but I can imagine many situations where something like that could prove useful or even critical. I’ll apply the upgrade now.”

I tapped the image to gain the skill. It glowed and then faded, coming back to the previous diagram. Once the pleasurable wave that came with the upgrading had passed, I turned my attention to the Persona of Ironside.

I was reaching forward to touch the Ironside image when a voice interrupted us from the edge of the clearing.

“Very impressive,” it said.

Cara and I both turned quickly to see who the newcomer was. To our surprise, it was Lady Kai, the leader of the cavalry team who had showed up at the end of the battle. She was standing at the edge of the tree line looking down into the clearing at us, as we stood with the row of faintly glowing Persona images hanging magically suspended in the air in front of us.

She walked carefully down into the clearing. The dappled sunlight played across the expanses of bronzed skin left uncovered by her armor. She moved with all the grace of a skilled warrior, combined with the sensuousness of a strong, confident woman.

“Very impressive indeed,” she said again. Her voice was warm and smooth as honey, and genuine interest shone in her face.

I would have expected my instinct to have been wary of the newcomer, protective of the intricacies of my soul binding ability and the Persona upgrades which were on display in the clearing. Instead, I felt nothing but warmth and trust toward this woman, and a glance at the open smile on Cara’s face showed me that she felt the same.

“Lady Kai,” I said. I stepped around the Persona diagram and moved toward her, my hand extended palm upward in a gesture of welcome. “You’ve found us in the middle of our upgrading process.”

“So I gather.” She stepped up to look at the Persona diagram hanging in the middle of the clearing. She smiled at us both. “I hope you don’t mind—when Toshiro told me about what you could do, I thought it was just a battle technique, like using a sword or firing a bow. Now I see that it’s much more powerful and much more... intimate. You two have a very special connection.”

“I didn’t realize it was so obvious,” I said.

“Only to one who has seen such things before,” she replied, smiling enigmatically.

Cara and I glanced at one another, but said nothing. How could she have seen a Soul Binder upgrading Personas?

Lady Kai was reaching up to the back of her neck. Her low neckline showed the swell of plunging cleavage, and between her breasts a carved wooden amulet dangled from a woven leather cord. She was untying the knot at the back of her neck and drawing it forth.

“This,” she said, holding it out, “I was given by my mother. She was given it by her mother, and so on down the generation for years beyond count. It carries a legend of a great warrior, a warrior from so long ago that his name is forgotten and only his legend remains. He was the husband of one of the high priestesses of our clan. When he died, he imbued his essence into this object, with the instruction that it should be passed on as an heirloom until one could be found who could use it. He meant one like you, Leofwine of Saxe. A Soul Binder.”

“How do you know about...?” Cara began to ask, but she fell silent when she saw the little wooden disk in Kai’s hand. It was about three inches across, a thick chunk of pale wood shaped into the form of a strange bear.

I wasn’t sure what to say. Kai treated it with great reverence, holding it out as if it were a precious gift. It didn’t look like much to me. I thought I would just chalk this up to the difference between cultures and accept it, despite the humble nature of the thing. I reached out and took it. The wood was still warm from lying against the soft skin between Kai’s breasts, and the feeling of that warmth in my hand gave me a momentary thrill of pleasure through my whole body.

Suddenly, I felt an incredible thrumming of energy from the little medallion. A glance at Cara, and I knew she felt it, too. There was a sudden pulse, a blast of power that felt like the great shout of a hearty warrior in his prime. The voice shouted once, full of fierce joy, then faded to silence again. The raw, earthen power of that surge was shocking in its sudden rawness.

“You can hear the power contained within it?” Kai said as she studied our faces. “I knew you would be able to. I cannot Soul Bind myself, of course, and neither can any of my family within living memory, but enough of the magic remains in my bloodline that I can feel an echo of the relic’s power.”

“I hear it,” I said quietly.

“And I,” agreed Cara.

Kai held out her hand, and I gave her the little relic back.

“I want to give this to you,” she said, “but there is a little tradition in my family which I feel I must honor before doing so.”

“Oh yes?” I asked, catching a challenging glint in her big dark eyes.

“In my clan, we put great faith in the prowess of a warrior. I’ve already seen your fighting skill, and your ability with the Soul Binding magic. I have no doubt that you are the right person for the relic, but I feel I must still honor my family’s tradition. Before I give you this powerful heirloom, I must challenge you to a duel, and you must win.”

I smiled at Lady Kai’s challenge. “Very well! It’ll give me an opportunity to test my new weapons.” I slapped the kusarigama pair at my belt.

Her eyes widened. She looked both surprised and impressed. “You’d use a brand new weapon in a duel?”

“The Persona gives me the knowledge and skill I need to use it, and I’m keen to try it out. Or are you perhaps unwilling to face my new kusarigama?” I glanced at Cara and saw her grinning proudly.

Kai’s eyes flashed at my challenge. “I think I can still disarm you, Persona or no Persona. Come on, Saxen, let’s see what you’ve got!”

Quick as lightning, she drew her samurai sword and took up her stance, the graceful curved blade balanced finely in a practiced two-handed grip. She circled warily as the kusarigama leaped into my hands. With a controlled swing, I brought the ball and chain attachments up and into motion. They swung in circles around me, the heavy heads whistling through the air. Any enemy who tried to get close to me would risk becoming entangled in the heavy chains.

Kai was a highly skilled fighter, but I could tell that she could not see a way through my defense. She circled, and I turned with her, keeping my eyes on her blade.

Suddenly, she feinted to my right, and when I swung my kusarigama chains around to that side, she dived in toward my left. She was fast—deadly fast—but not quite fast enough for me. I caught her sword swing on the blade of my left kusarigama, and the swinging chain wrapped itself once around my arm and then twice around her arms, hands, and sword, binding us together.

With my right kusarigama, I swung downward, wrapping her legs in three loops of chain. A flip of my left foot, and I stopped the spiked mace head before it hit her leg.

All of a sudden, we were very close. She was immobilized. With my left hand, I could control the movement of her hands and wrists. My right hand controlled her bound legs and ankles.

I put the smallest amount of pressure on both control points to make sure she realized my complete dominance, then stared into her face. Her full lips were parted, and she was breathing heavily. There was a flush in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes that seemed to be more than just the thrill of the fight.

Could it be that she was aroused by being immobilized by me in this way? I knew that it was not uncommon for women to be aroused by a strong, dominating male. In some women, that sometimes extended to being bound with cords or chains for pleasure. Was Lady Kai interested in that kind of thing? The thought made my loins burn with desire. I spared a glance at Cara, and she smirked at me, as though she too had noticed this not-so-hidden predilection of the Yamato woman.

Kai and I held there for a moment, looking right into each other’s eyes.

“Will you submit to me?” I asked quietly.

A shudder ran through her at the word ‘submit’, and she suppressed a smile. Her tongue came out and swiftly wetted her lips.

“Oh, yes, I’ll do that gladly,” she said, her voice husky.

I held her for one moment longer before stepping back. At a press of my will, the chains of the kusarigama swung back up and released Kai from her bondage. Cara was watching the interplay between us with shining eyes, and she made no attempt to conceal her broad smile.

Kai stepped away, bowed once, and sheathed her sword. “Thank you for helping me to honor my family traditions, “ she said. “You have bested me in a duel. You are clearly worthy. As promised, I now give you this, the ancient medallion of power passed down from generation to generation, waiting for a Soul Binder who can use it. Let it pass now from my hand to yours and cease its long journey through the ages at last.”

She handed me the medallion, and I raised the little pendant up to my neck and put it on.

With the explosive force of a charging horse, I was blasted out of this reality and into the spirit realm. Cara was by my side, but there was no sign of Kai.

This transportation was more forceful than either of us had ever experienced before, but after a moment, we found ourselves standing in the midst of what seemed a city shrouded in nocturnal darkness, lit only by a full moon and the stars hanging in the sky above us. The architecture was strange, all high carved columns, monumental sandstone buildings, and cobbled streets. Everything seemed laid out in orderly lines and angles.

We stood in a market square that would have likely been packed with people during the day. At night, however, it was empty, and its shuttered wooden stalls and shop fronts surrounded us. In the middle, stood a statue of a man in armor.

Over the tops of the buildings, I could see the side of a great structure, something huge, a curved wall like the side of a massive circular building, bigger than any building I’d ever seen. The streets were dark and deserted, but the curved building was shining with light from many windows, and there was a loud roar as if thousands of people were chanting and stamping in a great open space.

A figure sat on a stone bench by a fountain some way away. He stood and approached us, and the moonlight shone on his rugged face.

“Ironside!” I said in surprise. It was indeed the spirit of the warrior who had guided me through gaining my very first Persona. He was dressed in a rich garment made of a single long white cloth, wrapped around him in many folds.

“What is this place?” Cara looked around in wonder at the strange city.

Ironside smiled. “This is a famous city which I enjoy coming to sometimes. Perhaps one day you will come here of your own accord. The people have a great destiny, but there is corruption and evil here too. If the Festering comes here, it may thrive, so I spend time here and keep watch. If it comes, I will tell the Keeper, and you may be called to cleanse this place too.”

He opened his hands in an expansive gesture. He looked solemn, but also pleased.

“But that is for the future,” he said. “For now, you two have done well. I can see that you have gained more Personas and discovered the way to share them, like the Keeper said you would. And now you have attained a powerful gift. I must teach you how to use it.”

“The medallion?” asked Cara.

“Yes.”

“If the way it brought us here is anything to go by, it seems incredibly powerful,” I said.

“It is. The medallion contains the essence of a warrior spirit so ancient that all sentience and coherence has gone from it. All that is left is a sense of the joy of battle, and the essence of his power in combat, bound up and reduced to its core with elemental magic.”

I thought about the medallion and received a flurry of emotions that came from outside myself. It pulled, like iron filings to a lodestone, as though the ancient hero spirit desired unity with others of its kind. It was, somehow, incomplete, and only joining with another Persona would fulfil its true purpose.

“I feel that it is drawn to join itself with the Personas,” I said to Ironside.

“Yes,” he said. “That is how it works. The oldest of the Persona spirits have forgotten even their own names, and the only thing that is left for them to do is to merge with a Persona which still has a coherent identity. Only a Soul Binder such as yourself has the ability to do this.”

“What effect will it have?” Cara asked.

“Who can tell?” said Ironside. “That will change depending on the user and the Persona you choose to merge it with. But it is a spirit of raw power, bound up with elemental earth magic.”

I considered what Ironside had said. This ancient hero could be merged with another Persona. Which one would be appropriate? Earth elemental magic was likely to bolster strength, in both defense and offense. The Kitsune depended on speed and sleight of hand, whereas the Tree Persona seemed adept at both magical attacks and ranged combat. The Ironside Persona was very much melee-based, although it did possess the enchanted throwing axes. I then had two options. Provide either the Kitsune or the Tree Spirit Personas with a boost to their strength via Earth magic, or double-down on the already substantial powers of the Ironside Persona.

I faced Ironside, my decision made.

“The Ironside Persona is the most appropriate place for a spirit like that,” I declared. “The nameless spirit will merge and become one with the Persona of Ironside.”

I held up my hand, and the medallion shone out brightly between my fingers. The whole strange square where we stood was illuminated, then, with a strong rising sensation, I felt the power flow through me and merge with the Ironside Persona.

“Go well, Soul Binder,” Ironside said, then he and the strange city faded around us into blackness.

We found ourselves back in our woodland glade, the sun still shining brightly. No time had passed. Cara and I jolted back to awareness as the power flowed through both of us. I was wearing the shinobi aspect of the Kitsune Persona, but I reached now for the Ironside armor.

It responded immediately, and heat washed through me as the armor slid into place. On my back was my two-handed axe, my smaller pair of axes, and my familiar shield. But in my hand there was something new: an enormous iron mace.

The thing was as tall as me. Its spiked head was as big as my own head, and its shaft was as thick as my forearm. It seemed to have been forged from a single enormous piece of black iron. As I looked at it, I could feel that it thrummed with raw power.

“It’s so big!” exclaimed Cara.

I hefted it one-handed and heard Kai gasp.

“How can you lift it?” she asked.

“Troll strength,” I stated. “I’ll explain later.”

Kai and Cara both laughed out loud as I stepped away from them.

“You should step back,” I said.

Cara took a small step back, but Lady Kai remained standing where she was. I smiled at her confidence.

I lifted the huge weapon and swung it in a lightning fast arc around my head before slamming it into the ground. The shockwave blasted through the ground around me, rocking the nearby trees and sending a flight of startled birds shrieking up into the air. Kai lost her balance and stumbled a few steps backward. Cara, who had been expecting the shockwave, reached out and caught Kai’s arm to steady her.

I swung the mace again, up and forward this time in a two-handed grip, as if deflecting a blow. With that thought, power rushed up from the earth through the soles of my feet, up through my chest and out through the mace.

There was a crashing sound like rocks slamming together. To my amazement and great satisfaction, a thick sheet of stone, smoothly curved and about six feet across, appeared in front of me. It looked like it was functioning as a kind of earthen barrier. I stepped away from it and swung the staff again at the stone shield. The rock-hard edifice shattered into hundreds of pieces, the whole thing falling harmlessly to the floor.

“To think I’ve been wearing that power around my neck ever since I came of age,” Kai marveled.

“The Persona magic is incredibly powerful,” Cara said to her. “It’s only through Leo that I’ve been able to discover just how powerful.”

“So you are not a Soul Binder yourself?” Kai asked. She seemed surprised.

Cara shook her head, smiling as she looked at me. “No, Leo is the Soul Binder. I am able to share the power through my... connection with Leo.”

“Is that right?” said Kai, and I could see her musing on Cara’s words.

“If you wished it, I’m sure Leo would be willing to share the power of the Personas with you also,” Cara suggested, her smile growing a little wider. “I’m sure he’d take great pleasure in doing so. Perhaps I could watch? Or, if you’re willing, I could join?”

“Perhaps I might have that honor one day.” Kai smiled politely as she said it, but I could see from her face that she was still not entirely sure what form the connection between Cara and I took.

I thought it might be time to change the subject. “Shall we test the new mace?” I suggested. “I think it would be good to test it out against some projectiles.”

“I know just the thing,” Cara said.

Kai stepped back a bit. “I think I’ll stay out of the way.”

“Ready?” Cara asked, looking at me.

I held the mace up and spread my feet into a fighter’s stance. “Ready. Give it all you’ve got.”

She whipped out her bow and nocked an arrow quicker than you could blink. I flipped the monstrous head of the mace up and drew the power from the earth to summon the stone shield spell. A hail of arrows flew at me, but the shield sprung into being around me. This time, it was larger, like one side of a curved stone dome which had the potential to completely surround me, even though it didn’t do so just now.

The arrows rattled harmlessly off the outside of the stone. When I broke the spell, the wall shattered, but the pieces hung suspended in the air in front of me. I felt the power of the nameless Earth Persona surge through me, and I hurled the shattered shone-shield away from me. A wall of sharp stone shards flew across the clearing, where they hit a tree and scattered.

“That would cut an enemy to pieces!” Cara marveled.

“I can certainly see it coming in very useful,” I agreed. “Let’s up the stakes a little. Let’s try one of your ice and fire explosions against my stone shield.”

“Are you sure?” said Cara. “What if it doesn’t work?”

“In that case, the Ironside armor will protect me from the blow. Come on, I’d like to try it.”

The excitement of experimentation flashed in Cara’s eyes. “All right then,” she said with a smile. There was a shimmering around her, and she changed from her Tree Spirit Persona to her manifestation of the shinobi outfit.

“I’m looking forward to this,” Lady Kai said as she folded both arms over her ample breasts.

“Ready?” Cara called, her hand hovering over the shuriken belt.

“Ready!” I called back.

I slammed up my stone shield again, and Cara spun a flight of icy shuriken stars whistling through the warm air across the clearing at me. They thudded into my shield, and I heard the crackling sound as the ice sheet formed on the outside of the stone barrier. It took an effort of will to maintain the spell, and I braced myself for the impact of the explosion. A fire arrow hit the ice, and the thick orange flames rolled over the edges of the shield. It was very impressive to see the power of Cara’s fire and ice from this angle, and very satisfying to realize that my new spell could easily resist such power.

I dropped the stone wall, letting the pieces fall to the ground.

“Well, that worked!” Cara said, seeming a little breathless.

“It certainly did!”

Her eyes dropped to examine the Ironside armor I was wearing. “And your armor has changed, too.”

I glanced down at myself. She was right. The Ironside suit had always been big, but since I’d merged the nameless stone-spirit’s power with it, the metal plates had expanded even further. Angular runes were intricately traced in glowing blue and black detail across the edges of the plates. Despite the increase in size, the suit felt like it had become streamlined. The angles had smoothed out, the sharp edges had become curved. It felt light and easy to move in, as if the suit of armor bore its own strength that was supplementing mine.

“You look ready for whatever challenge life throws at you now,” Kai said admiringly. “I’m glad I gave you the medallion.”

“So am I,” I replied.

“Shall we go back up to the house?” Kai suggested. “I think Toshiro is keen to talk with you about what to do next.”

“Shortly,” I said. “There’s one more thing to try. Cara, I’m going to use the Kitsune Persona.”

She nodded. “Be my guest.”

With a shimmer of cool sensation, I switched over to the Kitsune Persona and felt the black shinobi aspect envelope me. The twinned kusarigama were at my belt, but it wasn’t them I wanted to try just now. It was the misdirection power.

Cara and Kai were standing next to each other, watching me. I took a breath, reaching for the place where I knew my new power awaited me. It felt similar in aspect to the power which allowed me to shift short distances instantly, but it was distinct. I activated this new ability and took two steps to the side.

“Where is he?” Kai cried. “Leo?” She glanced around and grabbed Cara’s arm in her surprise. “He was there, then he was gone!”

I let go of the power and felt it ripple around me as I stepped back into view. Cara was smiling. She guessed what I had done because she had seen me choose the upgrade, but Kai’s reaction showed me that it was certainly an impressive effect. For me, it was like stepping behind a screen. I did not disappear as it seemed. Rather, I placed a temporary image in front of myself which misdirected the eye of those who looked at me.

“It certainly works well,” Cara said, once I was visible again. “You just seemed to step out of existence.”

“That feels like it has great potential,” I mused. “But I’ll need to be careful not to rely on it too much. It doesn’t grant me full invisibility, and it wouldn’t stop a flying arrow, but it may allow me to pass unseen. I’ve not needed to use that kind of stealth yet, but I have a feeling it’s going to come in handy. Anyway, it feels good to add some powerful defensive spells to my skill set.”

I focused on the Personas again and switched back over to the non-combat aspect of Ironside. Cara did the same, revealing the non-combat aspect of the new Tree Spirit Persona for the first time. This proved to be a revealing costume of green silks, low cut at the neck and back, lifting her breasts, and showing off her legs to good advantage. A belt of leather and gold graced her hips, and the shimmering tumble of fabric brushed around her bare arms. Low shoes of soft green leather finished the outfit.

She stretched her arms. “Oh, that feels good!” she said. “I like everything about this Persona.”

Kai was admiring Cara, her eyes traveling appreciatively up and down the other woman’s body. “It looks very good on you,” she said, and the two women smiled warmly at each other.

“Shall we go back up to the house now?” Cara suggested.

I glanced up at the sky. More time had passed than I had realized. It was now early afternoon, and my stomach was suddenly reminding me that I hadn’t yet eaten today.

“Let’s do that,” I said. “I’m sure Toshiro will be wondering where we’ve got to, and we’ve still to decide on our next course of action.”

Kai fell in on my right and Cara on my left. Striding up the path toward the house with a beautiful woman on each side of me, and a collection of powerful Personas at my command, I felt a sudden rush of confidence and pleasure in my situation. Life was good, and whatever came next, I felt that I would be able to handle it. By the time I was through, the Festering would be cleared from the land of Yamato, and many other places too.

I had found my destiny, and it felt good.

When we got back to Toshiro’s house, I looked around at the progress on the cleanup.

“They’ve done more than I would have thought possible in an afternoon!” Cara exclaimed.

“They may be mercenaries, but they are hard workers,” Lady Kai said.

The mercenaries and the Byakko had worked together to clear the battlefield of Tengu corpses and smashed tree-demons. The Tengu had been buried in a deep grave over by the tree line, and a couple of Kai’s soldiers were filling the grave in with earth. There was no sign of the corpses of the Gaki.

Under General Koshu’s direction, the mercenaries and Kai’s soldiers had gathered up all the human dead to burn. Black smoke still rose from the pyre, and most of the mercenaries and soldiers worked here. I could see that it would take some time before they were finished. The smashed tree demons—of which there were many hundreds scattered around—provided an ample supply of fuel to the fires. It was a grim sight, but at least the human soldiers had all died honorably in battle. In Saxe, that was the best end a fighter could ask for.

General Koshu was conversing with Toshiro’s old manservant on the front step of the house. As we approached, Koshu saw us and raised a hand in greeting. The old servant hurried off into the house as Koshu approached us.

“Leofwine, Cara, Lady Kai.” The General bowed in turn to each of us. “We’ve made a lot of progress on the clear up.”

“You certainly have. But what happened to the Gaki?” I asked, looking around. There was no sign of their corpses anywhere.

Koshu shrugged. “They were spirits. Shortly after you left, they faded into oblivion. Such is the nature of the dark magic that summoned them.”

“And the Tengu are buried over there?” Kai pointed to where the men worked at filling in the last of the pit.

“Yes,” the General replied. “None survived the battle. The Byakko dug the pit, and the mercenaries and your soldiers helped to bury the Tengu. I believe that burial is the custom of the Tengu people.”

Kai shook her head sadly. “Yes. It’s a waste. The Tengu should have known better than to fight on the side of the Festering and the tree demons.”

“What do you mean?” Cara asked.

“Are they not demons themselves?” I asked. “They certainly carried the foul taint of the demonic.”

Kai looked at Cara, then at me, but she didn’t answer straight away. “Let’s go into the house and find Toshiro. There is some explaining to do.”

“I will continue out here,” General Koshu said.

Kai and Cara followed me through the main hall and out back of Toshiro’s house, crossing the practice courtyard and entering the peaceful garden. Here, we found Toshiro sitting at the table where we had talked the previous evening. He was still wearing his samurai armor, but he had taken off his helmet and laid it on the ground beside him. The old warrior was deep in thought, but he looked up at us and smiled as we approached.

“Ah, here you are,” he said. “My servant Win told me you were on your way. I’m glad to see you. Leo, Cara, I trust you have profited from the recent battle? You have gained more upgrades?”

“More than that,” I said to him. “We gained a whole new Persona.” I gestured to Cara.

She held her arms out to show Toshiro the beautiful costume she was wearing. As he looked appreciatively at her, she summoned the combat aspect. The Persona shimmered and transformed into the hunter outfit, with the long bow and twinned blades looking impressive in the bright afternoon sun.

“I am very glad to hear it!” Toshiro smiled as Cara changed back to the non-combat aspect. “You will need every advantage to fight and defeat the evil that is in this land.”

“You mean ‘we’,” I said. “I’m hoping you will come with us when we go.”

“I’m honored by your request, but surely you will not want a non-magic user like me along with you...?”

“On the contrary,” I interrupted him. “As you say, we will need every advantage. I’d like you to come along with us. If you are willing, of course.”

If this had been Saxe, and I was working for Thane Johan, I could have forced this warrior to take up arms and join me. But this wasn’t my homeland, so I went for a request rather than a command.

“I plan to go with them,” Kai put in, “and I’m no magic user.”

“Not yet, at least,” Cara said under her breath.

I glanced at Cara and found her giving me a private smile. Her meaning was clear. She seemed keen on the idea of me sleeping with Kai to give her the power to use Personas.

“There are ways you can gain the power of the Personas,” I said ominously, sparing a quick wink in Cara’s direction.

“There are?” Kai asked, genuinely intrigued.

“If this is so, then I must learn them!” Toshiro’s excitement far outweighed that of Kai.

“Uh,” I said, not realizing that Toshiro would be as interested as Kai. “Well, you see, I don’t exactly enjoy the feel of a man’s flesh, and I prefer to penetrate rather than be—”

Cara slammed an elbow into my side, and I shut up right then. I knew of some Saxen men who enjoyed the company of other men in their tents at night, but I was certainly not one of them. A pair of breasts and a tankard of mead was all I desired. Well, perhaps more than a single pair of breasts.

The thought of such things made my attention turn to Kai, whom I realized was staring at me, her eyebrows knitted together as she waited for me to speak.

“There are ways,” I said. “Toshiro, I don’t believe you could achieve them. Kai, however, may yet be capable of wielding Personas.”

“Very well!” Toshiro said, standing up suddenly, as though to hide his disappointment. “I will go with you. I will be glad of the opportunity to free my old friend Yakuna from the influence of the Kanosuru.”

“Yakuna?” Kai asked. At the mention of this man, she seemed to have forgotten how I hadn’t really answered her question about how she could wield Personas like Cara and me.

Quickly, Toshiro explained to Kai about Yakuna, the brave samurai who had traveled into the hills behind Otara to fight the Festering and had never returned. Kai listened thoughtfully, nodding her head.

Servants brought cool drinks for us, and more chairs. We sat around the little table to discuss our course of action. Kai told us that she had been through Otara recently, and that the Shogun there was under the influence of the Festering.

“The way it manifests in him is different to the others,” she explained. “For Shogun Morai, it’s more like he has control over it, not the other way around. There is no sign of the chaos and terror that the Festering usually brings. Yet there are strange tales of dark spirits that roam the streets at night. These monsters eliminate any of Otara’s rivals in dreadful ways.”

“What did you mean when you mentioned the Tengu earlier?” Cara asked. “You said something about them fighting on the wrong side?”

“That’s right,” Kai answered. “I was coming to that. The mindless, enslaved creatures that we have seen and fought on this battlefield are a corrupted form of Tengu. In Otara, there is a group of Tengu who are the main players in the resistance against the Shogun’s tyrannical regime. The resistance fighters are led by a Tengu woman, a charismatic leader named Nika. She is a friend to me. The Tengu are persecuted in the city, and that makes them less willing to submit to the Shogun’s decrees. But Nika has disappeared. We need to find her before we can do anything about what is happening in the city. We will need her help to rally the resistance against the Shogun.”

“The Keeper mentioned four enemies in Otara that we would have to face,” I said.

“The Keeper?” Kai asked.

“He’s the man who sent Cara and I into your world. I’m not sure exactly who—or even what—he is, but the one whom I serve on my homeworld—the Thane—commanded me to go on this quest.”

“Keeper,” Kai mused on the word for a moment. “I believe there are legends in Yamato of such people. They protect the realms, ensuring that the peoples never stray from the True Path. This Keeper, he mentioned you would face four enemies?” She leaned forward, keenly interested.

“Yes,” I replied. “I believe the Kitsune I fought in the temple was the first, and the Tree Spirit the second. Yakuna is the third. If what you say is true, this Shogun Morai might be the fourth and final foe in your world that we must face.”

“Then, my friend Nika is essential if you’re to complete your quest.” Kai gave a regretful sigh. “It was partly in search of Nika that I came traveling in this direction. I didn’t find her at Otara, but I thought that I would come and see my old friend Toshiro.” She glanced at Toshiro and smiled. “I wanted to find out if he knew anything about what was happening in this part of the land. I’m glad I arrived when I did.”

“As am I!” I said with some feeling. I was not only grateful for Kai’s help in the battle; I was very pleased to get to know the beautiful Yamato woman.

“For my part,” I said, “I want to cleanse the Festering, wherever I find it. But I believe we should face Yakuna before the Shogun. If the Shogun is as dreadful as he appears, then I will need every opportunity to grow in power before facing him.”

“I understand,” Kai said. “It makes sense to me that you should deal with Yakuna first. Then, when we go to fight the Shogun, we will at least know that we don’t have the threat of the corrupted Yakuna at our backs.”

“Well, that’s agreed then,” I said. “I propose that we spend what’s left of the day getting some rest and set out as early as possible tomorrow morning.”

Everybody agreed to that. Cara kissed me and headed up to our room, where Toshiro assured us that there would be food waiting. Kai bowed to us all and left to see her warriors and camp with them.

“There’s one thing I want to attend to before I go to my rest,” I said to Toshiro. “Will you come with me?”

The old samurai nodded and followed me through the house. We went outside and headed for the lake. There, in the shade by the water, the remaining Byakko rested in the shade of the trees. There were only twenty of them. Yasei lumbered to his feet and came over to me, and I put my hand on his great head as he bowed it to me.

“Your fellows have departed, then?” I asked him.

“Yes, they have gone. They will travel back north to our homeland. The ones who have decided to stay are all here.”

I looked around at the remaining tiger spirits. They were very impressive creatures, as big as horses, and much fiercer. Now, they seemed docile, dozing in the shade by the lake, but once they were back in battle, I knew that they would be a force to be reckoned with. I was glad to have them as part of my retinue.

Once I had explained to Yasei what my plan was and he had agreed, Toshiro and I walked back toward the house. Toshiro took his leave, saying that he wished to take a walk around in the wooded valley and see how things had changed. He made as if to bow to me, but I stopped him and clasped hands with him in a warrior’s grip instead. He looked at me questioningly.

“The others may bow to me if they wish,” I told him, “but let you and I treat one another as equals.”

He nodded to that.

I made my way alone through the big house and up the steps to our top floor room. I pushed the screen aside, to find Cara lounging on the sleeping mat. She had taken off the Persona and was wearing the revealing green dress which had been given to her the night we arrived. A sleepy murmur from her told me she was aware of my arrival. I thought of waking her, but decided against it.

There was food on the table as promised, and I spent some time satisfying my hunger. I undressed and washed in the warm water that had been provided, then lay down beside Cara. She rolled over and put a hand on my bare chest, then snuggled into me with a happy noise. I was dozing off when she spoke quietly, her warm breath tickling the hairs on my chest.

“You like her, don’t you?” she asked, with a smile in her voice.

“Who, Kai? Yes, actually, I do. She seems honest and strong, and a good fighter. And did I mention her breasts and her bronze skin?”

Cara laughed. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

“She is,” I said. “As are you.”

“I was thinking that if you were to bring her into our Persona-using circle... well, I’d like to be there when you do.”

The thought was exciting. I imagined the two women making love with me at the same time, Cara getting pleasure from being with us while I filled Kai with my seed and transferred that incredible power to her in the process.

“It would be an honor,” I said. “To have you both riding me, one on my cock and the other on my face. . . it would be almost enough to make me forget about Saxe.”

Cara made a high, lilting laugh. “I can’t decide which I would rather be, top or bottom.”

“What would you like to do if you were there?” I asked her playfully, reaching over to push the slick fabric of the dress up past her hip, revealing her shapely thighs.

“To taste you,” she said. “To taste of your power.”

She reached over and took my hand in hers, guiding it down between her legs. She gasped as my hand found that she was slick and wet already. I gently pleasured her with my fingers as she continued.

“I’d like to work with her to pleasure you,” she said breathlessly. She wriggled, pushing the dress up and over her head. Her nipples stood out big and dark in the warmth of the quiet room.

“I’d like to—oh!—I’d like us to both use our mouths to pleasure you. And I’d like to... to...” her voice trailed off into a moan of pleasure as I lifted my hand away and mounted her. Listening to her fantasies about sharing herself with me and with Kai had made me hard as a rock.

She wrapped her legs around the small of my back and thrust hungrily against me as I filled her up.

Afterward, I lay on my back with an arm behind my head, looking up at the ceiling. She lay with her head pillowed on my chest, breathing softly.

The thought of increasing our Persona circle by adding a third person was attractive, and not just because it would mean some exciting new possibilities in the bedroom. The ability to work together with Cara hugely increased the power of the Personas; bringing another into that circle would increase that potential power again.

At the same time, it was true that the idea of having both women as willing sexual partners at the same time would be a dream come true for me. I knew that in some lands, for a man to have more than one partner was considered wrong, and for three people to enjoy each other at the same time was considered positively deviant, but I had never subscribed to that idea. Except in the case of romantic relationships between warband leaders, the people of Saxe were not prudish about sexual relationships between consenting adults. If Kai and Cara wanted to join me in bed at the same time, that was fine by me. If we could expand the circle of Personas while we all enjoyed each other's bodies, so much the better.

On that pleasant thought, I drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, Cara and I woke feeling refreshed. We had slept the night through, and we only woke up when a servant tapped discreetly at the screen door to let us know that he had brought breakfast. He entered followed by two others, and the little group laid out food and fresh wash water for us on the low table, before bowing their way out.

We ate and drank and put the warmed and scented wash water to good use. Feeling refreshed and energized, we headed out and went downstairs. I wore the civilian aspect of the Ironside Persona, and Cara dressed in the non-combat aspect of the new Tree Spirit Persona. It suited her perfectly, and I could see from the confident sway of her hips and the cheerful way she hummed as she walked ahead of me that she was very pleased with it.

The first person we met was General Koshu. He was sitting on a low seat in the main hall, looking out thoughtfully into the practice court, but he stood and turned to us, bowing as we entered. His bristling beard had been washed and brushed, and he was wearing a neat robe of black, similar in style to the robes which Toshiro wore.

“I have something for you,” he said, addressing Cara once he had greeted us.

“For me?” she said in surprise.

“Indeed. A useful gift. Come, I will show you.”

Cara and I followed the General, who seemed pleased and excited at the prospect of giving Cara his gift, whatever it was. Cara squeezed my hand and smiled at me as we went with him.

Koshu led us out of the house. Nearly all trace of the battle was gone. Lady Kai’s troop of riders were camped a little way off from the house, in rows of neat tents, with horses picketed in lines nearby. A little above them, in a rougher-looking camp, were the mercenaries. The Byakko continued to lounge in the shade by the lakeside, some way off to our left. It crossed my mind that despite their size and ferocity in battle, they were not dissimilar to domestic cats in their capacity for sleep.

“It’s up here, by the mercenary camp,” Koshu said as we walked with him up the hill away from the house. When we reached the camp, the mercenaries who were up and about stood to attention. Koshu cast an approving eye over them, then set them at ease.

We walked through the camp and up to a grove of trees overlooking the tents.

“Here,” Koshu said proudly. “Here is my gift to you.”

There was a beautiful black horse picketed there, dressed in rich, gleaming tack and harness.

“His name is Yokaze,” Koshu said. “He is the horse which was given to the treacherous Kitsune priest, who turned out to be an agent of the Festering. One of the men found Yokaze wandering in the woods after the battle—he ran off when the priest began to transform, but now he is here without a rider, and I thought that you would be the most appropriate person to give him to.”

“Thank you!” Cara said. Pleasure at the gift shone in her eyes. As she approached, the great black horse came forward to let her nuzzle his silky neck.”Yokaze,” she said, and the horse whickered in response. “What does the name mean?”

“The word means ‘night wind’,” Koshu explained. “He’s named for his color and his speed.”

“He’s a perfect gift.” Cara smiled at the general. “Thank you.” She turned to me. “I’m going to have to try him out.”

The horse was fast and responsive. When Cara mounted, he immediately answered her reins and her heels. She leaned over and spoke into his ear, and he tossed his head and broke into a canter, heading down the valley in a great loop. As he put on speed, I heard Cara whoop with joy and the horse neighed in reply.

Back at the house, Cara led the horse to Toshiro’s stables and left him with the groom there. Her face was glowing with the pleasure of riding as she came with us through the house and out back again.

Here, Kai joined us. I greeted her warmly, and she seemed pleased to see both Cara and myself. I couldn’t help remembering Cara’s words, fantasizing about the three of us sharing our bodies and joining our power together. I saw from the twinkle in Cara’s eyes that she was thinking of it too. Kai looked at us both as if she could tell that there was something we were not saying, but she seemed content to let it be for the moment. I felt a stirring in my crotch, but firmly resisted the image of both their mouths slipping back and forth around my cock. There would be time for that later, I felt sure.

We found Toshiro in the practice yard. All was ready for our departure, he told us. Lady Kai, General Koshu, and Toshiro all made it clear that they were still determined to accompany me and Cara to take on Yakuna.

“This is the biggest service we can give to our land,” Toshiro said, and the others nodded solemnly.

The mercenaries, said General Koshu, were committed to helping us as well. Since there were only twenty of them left, they would not be much good as a mercenary band for hire. Their reputation for being undefeated was in tatters.

They wanted to avenge their comrades, who had been tricked by the evil of the Festering.

General Koshu felt that he had to fight the Festering to regain his honor, since he had been tricked also, and Lady Kai assured us that her fifty riders would follow her into the fight as well. Toshiro revealed that ten of his servants, men who had fought with him in the old days, desired to come with us too, and they could provide their own horses from Toshiro’s stables. All in all, Cara and I would lead more than eighty mounted warriors to fight Yakuna.

In a very short time, all was ready. Kai’s riders and the mercenaries broke camp quickly and efficiently. Toshiro led his small band, dressed again in his old black armor. His servants, one or two of whom I recognized, looked very different in their own black samurai armor. They moved like a trained and practiced unit, and they were armed with lances, bows, and swords.

The Byakko submitted to be ridden again by the remaining mercenaries, and Yasei came to me and bowed his back to allow me to mount. Cara rode her new horse, Yokaze, whose black coat gleamed in the sun.

When all were ready, I rode Yasei a little way in front of them all and turned to look down at my small army. The gleaming gold of Kai’s cavalry contrasted with the reds and yellows of the mercenaries, and the clean, white-furred Byakko. In the midst of all, Toshiro’s band were dressed in all black armor on black horses, looking like a cloud of shadow amid the riot of color of the rest of the group.

I stood up in my stirrups and held up my hand. They were already motivated for this mission, but I felt it was worth making a statement to this brave band who had aligned themselves with me. The sun blazed down from the blue sky and gleamed on their armor and their weapons.

I was wearing the armor of Ironside, and I raised an axe up into the air.

“You are with me now!” I cried, and I heard my voice ring and echo off the surrounding cliffs. “You are with me, the Soul Binder! Together we will cleanse this land of the Festering taint, and bring peace to Yamato!”

“Soul Binder! Soul Binder!” they all called in unison, then gave a great cheer as I threw my axe up into the air and caught it again. I glimpsed Cara’s proud smile as I turned Yasei’s head and led the company up the valley and out into the woods beyond.

After we had been going for an hour or so, Toshiro approached me and spoke quietly. We were a little distance away from the others.

“You sense it, don’t you?” he asked me in an undertone. “You sense the Festering, but you don’t feel the crippling fear which it causes in other men. Why is that?”

It was a direct question, and it deserved a direct answer, but I didn’t feel like going too deeply into that just now. I had not even told Cara the full story yet, and she seemed to accept that it was not something I wanted to speak about. I looked at Toshiro for a long moment. In my mind, I saw a splash of bright blood on white silk. An open mouth. Claws. The echo of a long-ago scream.

“My childhood was... bound up with the Festering,” I told him after a moment. “When I was very small, I fought the Festering in my own way. It was an internal battle, and I won. Eventually. Ever since then, it has affected me differently from the way it affects other men. I sense it, but I do not feel the fear of it. I will never fear it again.” The ferocity in my own voice startled me, and Toshiro actually drew back from the expression on my face.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize how personal it was. I’m glad you don’t fear it. Cara has her potions to give to the mercenaries, my guards, and Kai’s soldiers, but without the potion, we would be crippled by the fear of it. We’re very lucky to have you two as our leaders.”

We rode northeast through wooded foothills, keeping clear of the road. Though we weren’t headed for the town of Otara just yet, we’d judged it best to avoid the possibility of being seen by the Shogun’s scouts. News might have reached him already about the victory at Toshiro’s house, but if we could avoid him knowing that a large band of armed warriors were heading in the direction of his city, so much the better.

As the day passed, the trees became scarcer and the land wilder. We were climbing steadily, and as evening was darkening to night, we could see the whole lowlands dropping away toward the sea on our right. On our left, dark mountains loomed out of deep forest.

My sense of the Festering told me that we were nearing our goal.

In a wooded dell near a stream, I called a halt. We would rest now and be at our best for tomorrow. No doubt, when we faced Yakuna, we would battle with a Festering-tainted creature of great power. But we would be ready. I had an army at my back and Personas from which to draw strength and skills.

My heart beat in my chest, and my hands ached to draw my axe. I stilled them both and sat in front of a crackling fire, staring into its embers as I recalled the first day I had encountered the Festering. The vision came to me unbidden, and I would have allowed it to continue before my mind’s eye were it not for Cara who came to sit in my lap.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“For what?”

She stared into my eyes. “To face the man who was once called Yakuna.”

“With you by my side? And this army at my back?” I gestured at the many tents that had sprung up around us. “I am ready.”

“Good. Now, come to the tent. I have an aching desire for your seed.”

The next morning, we mounted up again and continued on our way. The day was gray and overcast, with a suggestion of rain in the air. Mist blew ominously across the treetops. We were approaching the Festering.

It didn’t take long before the men under Kai’s command felt the fear. They seemed to be more attuned to it than the mercenaries or Toshiro’s folk for some reason, and they muttered and glanced around as if they feared an attack.

When one man blanched and fell from his horse in a faint, we stopped so that Cara could distribute her potion. Everyone took some, even Kai, Toshiro, and Cara herself. I was the only person who didn’t need it.

Once the glow of the fear antidote was shining through all of the company, Cara rode forward to me and brought her horse, Yokaze, up next to my tiger mount, Yasei. We rode together in silence for a while.

“It’s close, isn’t it?” she said.

“Very.” I pointed uphill from where we were. “To my sight, there are visible waves of brown, rotten energy pulsing from up there. I think we should see the Festering’s origin when we climb to the top of this ridge and look down.”

We were riding along the spine of a ridge of hills, but now I urged Yasei up the slope, ahead of the rest of the company. Sure enough, when I gained the summit and looked down into the next valley, I saw it.

The Festering.

Gray clouds of noxious vapor floated in the valley below. Thick brown mold coated every blade of grass, and the trees were warped and distorted into demonic, nightmarish shapes. Cara and Kai both rode up and sat on their horses beside me, looking down into the foul and infested valley.

Kai shuddered. “Even with your potion, Cara, I still feel something of the horror of it. I’ve not been here for a long time, but I knew this valley years ago. It was beautiful. Now it has become a place of terror.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “It will take a bit of doing, but we’ll drive the threat out, and when we do, it will return to the way it was. Come, let’s not delay. The morning has almost passed. I want to make the most of the daylight.”

But it was not going to be so easy.

When everyone had reached us, we led our powerful force down into the valley. Cara, Kai, Toshiro, and myself were in the lead. Green grass ran down to the valley floor, and the day was bright despite the overcast, but at an abrupt line, the Festering began. We stopped at the line and dismounted, then all four of us stepped over the line into the Festering, leading our mounts.

To my surprise, I heard a dull thud and a growl behind me. At the same time, there was a frightened whinny from Cara’s horse, and the line she was leading him by went taut. I turned and saw to my surprise that Yasei and Yokaze were both pressed up against the line of the Festering as if there were an invisible barrier there blocking their way.

Yasei growled, clenched his muscles and leaped, but he hit the barrier with an audible thud and fell backward. None of our mounts could pass.

General Koshu hurried up and tried experimentally to cross the line to reach us on the other side, but he could not.

“What is this?” he called, sounding angry and afraid. His voice sounded muffled, as if he was shouting through a stone wall. He raised a fist and slapped the air in front of him, but his hand flattened out as if it were pushed against a glass pane.

I approached what looked like the invisible barrier and pressed my own hand against it. Indeed, it was solid, and I could not pass through to the other side where Koshu, our mounts, and the rest of the troops were standing. Kai, Cara, and Toshiro also attempted to pass through the barrier, but they were unable to cross back over either.

“We cannot let you go in alone!” General Koshu protested from the other side. He drew his sword and slashed at the barrier, but his blade met an impenetrable force with a clang. From the way he gritted his teeth, it seemed the feedback had shot up through his hands and shaken his whole body. He drew back his sword, as though to strike the barrier again.

I held up a hand. “Stop, Koshu. I don’t think we have any choice. I have the three most powerful members of the party with me here; I’m not afraid of what the Festering will throw at us. You must take command of the rest of the party and wait for us. Test the barrier regularly to see if it is still in place—if it drops, come after us.”

One of Kai’s lieutenants came up to the barrier as well to talk to Kai. She instructed him that they should follow General Koshu’s orders until such time as we met again.

“And if we do not meet again?” the lieutenant asked, his brow furrowed and beads of sweat glistening on his forehead.

“Then the Broken Sword Company must pick a new leader from among the ranks.”

“I’m not happy with this at all,” Koshu protested.

“We have no choice, my friend,” I repeated. “Wait for us, and be ready to follow at a moment’s notice.”

I turned to my three companions. The air smelled foul, the daylight was clouded and hazy with the noxious fumes that accompanied the presence of the Festering.

“Come,” I said to my small group. “Let’s go on. If this is a trap, our only choice is to travel to the center of the Festering and find the source.”

“It has to be Yakuna,” Toshiro said. He winced, as though to say the words about his old friend was physically painful. “This is near the site of the rumors.”

“If it’s Yakuna, then he’s somehow using the Festering to create this invisible barrier around the area which is under his influence. The only way to break it will be to break him.”

Koshu and the others watched reluctantly as I led Cara, Kai, and Toshiro away from them, into the thick haze and polluted mist of the Festering.

“Can you locate its center?” Cara asked me after we had been walking for a little while.

I looked around. Behind us, there was no sign of our companions, only the corrupted brown of the Festered landscape fading in the dark mist. Undulating hills marched off into the haze in every direction, and twisted, rotten trees stood about in little copses. I concentrated on my sense of the Festering, seeing the waves of malignant energy pulsing through the air around us.

After a moment, I pointed up the valley. The land in that direction climbed slowly. A river ran toward us along the valley floor. In normal times, it would have been beautiful, no doubt. Now, the water was thick and foul-smelling even from here, and overlaid with a glistening, oily scum.

“That way.” I pointed upriver in the direction that the waves of energy were coming from. “The source of it is that way.”

“Toward the old Miru castle,” Toshiro whispered.

“Miru castle?” Cara asked.

He nodded. “Miru was an old watch castle back in the days when this was border country against the rebels. That was many years ago now. There was a big battle here. Many men died, rebels and Shogunate forces alike. After the battle, the castle was no longer needed. It was not repaired, and it fell into ruin.”

“How far is it?” Kai asked him.

“Not far. Perhaps an hour on foot.”

“Yakuna must be there,” I said with conviction. “The Festering is expanding from a central point, so it would be appropriate for it to come from a place that was the site of slaughter. We’ll set off in that direction without delay.”

We started walking, but it wasn’t easy going. The very landscape seemed to resist us, and frequently I or one of my companions felt something grapple at our feet and ankles out of the undergrowth. The third time it happened, Cara cried out and stumbled. Something chittered and scuttled away through the long grass.

We had made steady progress up the infested valley, and the soaring hills on either side climbed up into the thick haze and out of sight. The whole scene was eerily deserted and barren, and yet there was a presence in the place, like something watching us with malevolent intent.

The mist coalesced around us and thickened. Humanoid forms appeared, looming at us out of the gloom.

“What are they?” Cara cried. Her bow was in her hand, and her eyes were wide as she stared at the figures.

“They are the spirits of the warriors who died in this place,” Toshiro explained, drawing his sword and standing back-to-back with Kai.

“Wait a moment,” I said to my companions. “Look at them. They’re not attacking. They’re interested, but...” I took a bold step toward a cluster of the vague forms, and they drew back from me with a frightened hissing noise.

“Somehow, I don’t think they’re corrupted,” I continued. “I think they’re condemned to haunt this place. The Festering has disturbed them from their rest, but they are not possessed by it. I might almost say that they are glad of our presence, and would support us if they could.”

As I said it, the ghostly forms gave way to us, clustering behind us and moving as if urging us forward up the valley.

“I wish they’d let us get on with it,” Cara said. “Supportive or not, they’re rather terrifying.”

We all laughed at that, and the tension eased a little. The crowd of spirits hung back, watching and waiting.

“Let’s keep an eye on them,” I warned as we started forward again. “I think the Festering can be directed toward specific targets. For some reason whoever is controlling it in this valley has not directed it toward these ghosts. He may still be able to. Let’s be wary.”

“It has to be Yakuna,” Toshiro said, sounding sad for the plight of his old friend. “Somehow, he has become the controller of all the evil in this valley.”

“I’m afraid you’re almost certainly right,” I said. “The Festering has caught him and used him as a vector to spread into the valley, but I feel a strong will at work here, more than the unfocused evil of the Festering that I’ve felt in previous encounters. This is new to me. I’ve never known the Festering to behave quite like this before.”

“We’ll stay on guard,” Kai said.

My friends all walked with their weapons drawn, taking care to avoid the whipping, grasping, creeping plants that were everywhere in the valley now. Their rank tendrils pawed at our feet and ankles with every step. It slowed us down a little, but it didn’t stop us.

The spirits crowded behind us, and now we became aware of a distant noise coming from them, a howling and shrieking. It was a horrible undercurrent to our wary walk through the empty valley.

Just as I began to wonder if the dreadful noise and tension was getting too much for my companions, Cara gave a cry and pointed up ahead of us. “Look! That must be it!”

“You’re right.” Toshiro squinted through the gloom. “It’s the ruin of Miru castle.”

There wasn’t much to see at this distance, just a looming suggestion of tumbledown stone walls rearing up out of the mist from the top of a nearby rise. We headed straight toward it all the same, and the valley spirits crowded around behind us, shrieking and howling in their distant voices.

The land changed as we made our way up toward the ruined fortress. It became bare and muddy rather than thick and grassy, and we started to see vague forms in the mud surrounding us. Nobody asked what they were, but it soon became clear. They were suits of armor, rusted and discolored and half-buried in the dirt. Weapons protruded from the ground around them, broken swords and rusty spears, naginatas and wooden bows all bent and warped with the years. The glint of wet and moldy bones could be seen through the gaps in the armor.

As we advanced up the hill, the broken piles of dead became thicker, and their placement told a story.

“They must have lost many men coming up this hill against the castle walls,” I said quietly, seeing the heaped bodies all around us.

Toshiro shuddered. “I fear you are right. This battle was before my time, and I was not here, but I heard tell of it when I was young from oldsters who were here. It was a terrible fight.”

The spirits fell back, and when I looked around, they were now moving mournfully among the broken suits of armor and the skeletons. The ghostly forms wailed and groaned, stooping every now and then as if they were searching for something. It was a terrible sight, though it was a relief not to have them crowding behind us any more. At least this way we had a clear line of retreat back down the hill if we needed it.

The castle wall loomed up out of the thick brown fog at us. With surprising suddenness, we had come upon the top of the hill. It opened out into a wide flat space, all scattered with fallen stones and wreckage.

In its day, it must have been a big, impressive building, but now it was reduced to heaps of rubble scattered about the hilltop. The outer wall was broken halfway up the middle. Now that we were at the top, I noticed that the looming section we had been approaching was the only part of the outer keep still standing.

In the middle were a few taller bits of wall, and my sense of the Festering was battered by the thrumming waves which emanated from it. It was so thick I almost found it choking my breath.

“Cara,” I whispered, looking at the pale and drawn faces of the others, “I think a little more of your potion might be in order.”

She nodded silently and drew a little vial from her belt. She passed it around, and everyone took a drop. Even I decided that it might do me some good. I did not feel fear, exactly, but I was hammered by the oppressive force of the Festering.

I placed a drop under my tongue, and the sweet taste of the stuff flooded through me. It was very welcome. I handed the bottle back to Cara.

“Does it work?” she asked with an air of professional interest.

“Actually, it does make a difference,” I said, smiling as I realized it was true. I felt less oppressed by my sense of the Festering, less besieged by the horror of the corrupted landscape around us.

I glanced around at my friends. Everyone looked better. Toshiro had the glint of battle in his eyes. Kai stood straight-backed, her sword in her hand, throwing alert glances around the hilltop. Cara looked at me and beamed with pride at her potion’s effect on the morale of our little group.

I smiled back at her.

“Let’s go,” I said. “There is no time to waste. The Festering taint is coming from over there.” I pointed to the few remaining walls which stood in the middle of the hilltop. The tallest one blocked our view, and we approached it warily.

When we reached the edge of the wall, my group lined up against it. Stealth, I thought, would serve me best just at this moment, so I drew on the Kitsune Persona and transformed from the Ironside armor into my shinobi outfit. Silently, I stepped around the corner.

In the middle of a wide flagged courtyard, a man was sitting on a huge block of stone with his back to me. He was cross-legged, his elbows crooked and his hands in his lap as if he was sitting in some kind of formal meditation. He looked, surprisingly enough, to be entirely normal. He wore no armor, just a humble robe of gray. His black hair was tied up into a samurai-style topknot, but there was no sign of any weapon near him. All around his seat, armor was piled and bones were scattered, mixed in with the rusty weapons and tattered banners which were the relics of the long-passed battle.

I had expected a fight, and I had been prepared for any kind of strange threat to manifest at this point. To be presented with a humble meditating figure in the midst of all this ghostly Festering horror was somehow even more disturbing than an attack by some unspeakable monster. That, at least, I could have fought and defeated. This quiet figure made me feel strange. I didn’t know how to proceed.

With a wave of my hand, I gestured to the others to come into the open space, then glanced back into the square.

Only then did I see the woman.

She was in a cage, like an oversized bird cage. The cage was suspended fifteen feet in the air from a wooden scaffold by a long chain of heavy iron links. She was slumped down as if asleep or unconscious, and most of her form was shrouded in filthy scraps of fabric. There was something strange about her which I could not quite make out from this distance, some suggestion of feathers around her face, and her hands seemed longer and finer than normal.

The others came and stood with me, staring at the strange scene.

There was nothing else for it. I strode forward, taking a breath to challenge the seated figure. But before I could speak, he turned his head. Very slowly, his head revolved on his neck. It turned and turned until, horribly, it had turned completely around and leered at us over its bent back.

The face was not that of an ordinary man. Madness blazed in his eyes. His skin was puckered and twisted like that of a man who had been burned or ravaged by disease. His lips looked as though they had been cut away, the ragged hole of his mouth revealing the expanse of his teeth and gums in a terrible rictus of a grin. His ears were mutilated, and his nose was gone also. His eyes burned with an unnatural light.

Despite his horrific appearance, Toshiro took two steps forward and gasped. “Yakuna, my old friend, what has happened to you?”

This dreadful apparition leered at us, but it did not reply to Toshiro. Instead, it opened its nightmarish mouth unnaturally wide, and a hiss came from it like a thousand angry snakes. From the depths of the black mouth leaped a cluster of slimy black tentacles. The tentacles whipped out and around, reaching toward us and groping at the air before retreating back into the gaping, toothy mouth. I had no doubt that Toshiro was right.

We had found Yakuna.

The evil, multitudinous voice of the Festering boomed out from Yakuna’s seated form. His body had not moved, but his head was turned almost completely on his neck, and the terrible grinning face was looking right at us.

“Well, Soul Binder,” the voice gloated, “so you have come to us at last. We have been waiting long for you, you and your meddling friends. You have come here by your own will, and now you will stay with me, you and your pretty women.” The horror opened its mouth again, and a blood-red forked tongue lolled out in a parody of laughter.

“Yakuna!” Toshiro tried again. “Yakuna, it is I, Toshiro, your old friend and comrade. We fought side by side together, don’t you remember? How can you be like this? What has happened to you?”

He took a step forward, and Kai reached out to stop him, but he shook her off. The old samurai seemed mad with grief for his friend’s fate.

“Toshiro,” I said firmly, ignoring the creature’s gloating laughter. “That thing is not your old friend. If there is any part of the real Yakuna left in there, it’s buried deep. If we can slay it, we may be able to free him from his entrapment, but do not approach it.”

“How can I not approach him? He’s my friend; I have to help him!” He tried to pull away from me, and the tentacles tumbled from Yakuna’s mouth again, slapping the stone on which he sat and reaching out toward Toshiro.

“Don’t you see that the Festering wants you to approach him?” I said sternly. “If you do, you will be killed and enslaved, and you will turn on us. You will be as tainted as he has become.”

That seemed to get through to him. He stood, blinking back tears of anger and frustration.

“You’re right,” he panted. “I need to get a hold of myself. There’s something... I don’t know what came over me. It was like madness for a moment, but it’s passed.”

“It’s the effect of the Festering, Toshiro,” Kai said. “We can all feel it, but you were more susceptible to it because of your grief for your friend.”

“Yes, yes, I see that now,” he said. Then he looked back at the terror which sat unperturbed on the stone, gazing at us in anticipation of what we would do next. Toshiro’s dark eyes hardened, and I saw him take control of himself. Slow anger came over him.

“We must kill it,” he said in a voice as hard as stone.

“Yes,” I replied. “But we must be careful. You must follow my lead and not let your emotions get the better of you.”

Toshiro nodded and dropped back behind me.

The creature laughed horribly, throwing its head back.

“And you, good Lady Kai,” it said, “do you not recognize an old friend when you see one?”

The head was facing us, sitting backward on the body, but the left hand of the seated figure rose mechanically, like a puppet on a string. One finger pointed upward at the woman in the cage. She was still shrouded in blankets, so I doubted Kai could make out the woman’s identity even if it were her own sister caged in there.

At first, Kai didn’t seem to recognize the woman, then a dark realization flooded her features.

“It’s Nika!” Kai gasped.

“That’s the Tengu woman?” Cara asked. “The leader of the resistance in Otara!”

“My friend,” Kai said, a sob bursting from her lips. “How I’ve searched for you.”

That explained the strangeness about the caged woman’s figure, I thought. She was a Tengu. Well, it was good to know that not all the Tengu were vicious enemies. I looked with interest again at the Tengu woman in the cage, but beyond the elegance of her hands and the feathering about her brow, I could see nothing of her.

To my horror, Kai started forward, a blank look in her eyes.

“That’s right,” crooned the thing that had taken Yakuna’s body as its own, “come to me. Come over here and retrieve your friend.”

Cara and I grabbed Kai and pulled her back, but she continued to try to move forward, as if being drawn by something stronger than herself.

Kai was very strong, and I had the sudden realization that whatever was controlling her did not care about her body. It would keep her moving even through physical pain. I was not going to be able to restrain her without hurting her.

I heard the creature chuckling and gloating from its seat, “Come to me, come to me, that’s right, come here...”

“We have to do something!” Cara said. The gap between us and the creature was closing relentlessly.

A thought struck me, and I reached out and grabbed Cara’s hand. “The Personas! Combine the Persona power, the way we did to close the crack during the battle at Toshiro’s house. We can use that power to drive out the Festering’s control over Kai.”

Cara obeyed immediately, grabbing at my hand and flinging her awareness of the Personas toward me as I did the same toward her. Our awareness combined in a flash of enormous power, and we both instinctively hugged Kai’s body between us. Cara placed her free hand on Kai’s forehead, and I felt her push the Persona’s power into her.

With a snap like a breaking cord, we felt the influence of the Festering break and retreat. Blue light, clean and beautiful in that horrible bleak place, shone out from Kai’s body.

For one incredible moment, the three of us were together, hanging suspended together in the spirit realm, grasping each other close. It was a powerful and intimate feeling, a feeling almost like joining completely. Black shadows fled in terror from Kai’s body at the approach of the blue light.

Then it passed, and Kai was on her knees in the dust, panting and clutching her drawn sword. Cara and I stood. Cara was a little shaky.

“What... what was that? What happened?” Kai gasped, looking up at both of us.

“That was the influence of the Festering,” I said, keeping a wary eye on the creature which leered and chattered to itself in Yakuna’s body. “It tried to take control of you through your emotions, just as it did through Toshiro.”

“What did you do?”

“We drove it out with the combined power of the Personas.”

“So that was what that feeling was. That felt... good.” She seemed almost embarrassed. It had been a very intimate moment. Just now, however, I needed to concentrate on my enemy.

“Well, my friends,” Yakuna said in his madman’s voice. “You have come here to visit me, but I have no need of new friends. I have plenty of company, as you can see.” He swung his head to and fro, as if indicating the piles of rusty armor and desiccated skeletons which lay all about. “Many friends, plenty of company. And if you won’t join me of your own accord, then I’ll just have to ask my friends to bring you to me instead!”

With a terrible suddenness, the figure of Yakuna leaped up into the air and turned, landing on all fours like an animal, his fingers and toes gripping the squared edges of the stone block. His horrible flat face was turned to us, then his mouth opened and the roar of the Festering filled the flat hilltop.

Kai had recovered quickly from her ordeal. She got to her feet and drew herself up to her full height, flanking me and facing the monstrosity on the block with her sword raised. Cara fitted an arrow to her bow, and I reached for the kusarigama, the sickle-bladed weapons that went with the shinobi outfit I was wearing. Toshiro had reluctantly drawn his sword.

I stood in the center of my little group, watching the creature warily.

“Stay close,” I said. “Don’t attack it just yet. It wants us to approach. Let’s wait and see what...”

There was a clanking, rattling noise, the screech of rusty metal on metal and a dry groaning sound. We glanced around, confused. In the cage, dangling from the scaffold, the Tengu woman was crouching, her back straight, looking down on the scene. She had woken from her slumber and discarded the rags that had covered her. Her elegant, long-fingered hands clutched the bars of her prison. I looked up, but except for a glint of eyes, I couldn’t see her face because of the shade cast by her hood.

“Where’s that sound coming from?” Cara asked.

“And what is it?” Toshiro added.

My weapons were in my hands, but instinct told me I might be needing the armor of my Ironside Persona soon too. I glanced around.

“There!” I said suddenly, pointing. “Look there!”

It was the suits of armor.

The rusty suits of ancient samurai armor were rising, jerking up into standing postures as if they were filled with living men again, but they were not.

“It’s the skeletons! He’s raised the skeletons!” Cara’s frightened cry was true. Empty eye sockets stared from the shadow of helmets, and bony, gauntleted hands groped at the air as all the armored skeletons were wrenched back to a horrible mockery of life.

That was where the clanking sound was coming from; it was the noise of many rusty armor plates grinding against each other. They rose up out of the dust like the spectral ghosts of ancient warriors, before they shambled toward us.

“They’re everywhere!” Kai cried.

She was right. As the corrupted Yakuna monster leaned back on his central stone block and howled with laughter, the entire landscape erupted with rusty figures.

Yakuna remained seated in the middle of the courtyard while the armored undead soldiers came at us from every direction, lumbering and groping forward with skeletal hands outstretched. There was no questioning that this was the darkest necromancy. These corpses had been raised from the dead to fight on the side of the Festering. Some were armed with rusty polearms and swords, but most were coming with claw-like hands extended toward us, as though they wanted to catch and tear us to pieces.

“Cara!” I shouted. “Be ready with your lightning power! Kai, Toshiro, stay behind us and don’t risk yourselves. There’s magic to deal with here, and I doubt your swords will do much good against it.”

It was time to try out my mace.

I reached for the Ironside Persona and let out a battle roar as the strength of it flooded my body. The enormous mace was in my hands, and Cara was at my side with her bow at the ready. I made sure that Toshiro and Kai had their backs to the wall, then I waded into the approaching mass of rusty figures.

I swung my mace, and the animated suits of armor crumpled like paper under the massive strikes of the powerful weapon. I circled it around my head and caved in the chest of an armored skeleton, then crushed another two on the back swing. The fallen skeletons tangled the feet of the others, and I stepped up and drove the mace’s head into the helmet of the leader. The skull inside the helmet shattered, and the whole suit crashed to the ground. There was a hollow scream from inside it.

“Time to see what fire will do, I think!” I called to Cara.

“Luckily you have just the right person for the job!” she called back.

I glanced over at her to see her face alight with the joy of battle. She laughed out loud and loosed a flight of arrows into the midst of the armored skeletons.

The resulting boom rocked the thick air of the gloomy hilltop, and pieces of bone and rusty armor flew flaming in all directions. Out of the smoke, another wave of the undead lumbered.

Cara was treating her arrow with fire potion, so I ran in, tackling the biggest armored skeleton with my mace. He was armed with a naginata, and he caught my first blow on the shaft of his polearm and turned it, stepping back and trying to get enough distance between us to use the rusty blade. For a moment, I gazed into the darkness of his helmet. Twin points of glowing red burned deep in the skull’s black eye sockets.

Battle-fury filled me, and I changed tack. I slammed the mace forward, just as I felt a rain of blows scoring my armor plating from behind. I drew on the stone shield spell, flinging up a curving wall of stone between me and my dead foes. With a twist of my will, I hurled the spell at them. It shattered into a million pieces and blasted outward with a wave of force that sent them flying backward in a hail of razor sharp stone fragments. Cara followed up with another rain of flaming arrows, clearing a space in the encroaching sea of rusty enemies. I fell back to talk to her.

“You all right?” I asked.

She nodded, a little breathless. We glanced back to see Kai and Toshiro standing with their backs to the stone wall and their swords at the ready. As I watched, a wave of armored skeletons came rushing around the corner. Kai leaped into action. As I looked at her, I caught her smile and her challenging glance as she charged, and I understood its meaning; she wanted to make sure I was seeing what she could do.

Kai stepped up swiftly and swept her graceful sword through the necks of the first two who came at her. As they crumpled, a third raised a rusty samurai sword for a killing blow. She hit the skeleton’s sword with such force that it cracked in the middle. As she shoulder-barged the armored skeleton out of the way, Toshiro dived in to take out two others.

“Their swords seem pretty effective after all,” Cara said wryly.

“For now,” I said. “They’re buying us a little time. Let’s see if a fire arrow will have any effect on Yakuna.”

The terrible, corrupted form of Yakuna still sat, squatting like a giant frog on the stone block at the center of the courtyard. He had grown, bursting out of his black robes to reveal gray, puckered skin. He was bloated, monstrously large, and his huge distended belly hung down between his legs. He looked like a bloated corpse that had floated in water for a week.

Making a sound of disgust in her throat, Cara whipped an arrow out, treated it, and fired it. The potion-imbued projectiles multiplied in the air, but Yakuna made a gesture with one swollen hand, and the fire burst before it hit him. I snatched a throwing axe from my belt and threw it at Yakuna, but that too met an invisible force and clanked to the ground. I reached my hand forward, and the throwing axe returned to me, but it was no use trying again. It was as if Yakuna was protected under an invisible dome of glass.

“He’s got a protective barrier like the one which stopped us at the border!” I exclaimed.

“No time to wonder how to get past it now,” Cara said. “Look!”

I looked where she was pointing. Kai was hard-pressed by a crowd of the armored skeletons, and one had got between her and Toshiro, separating them from each other.

Cara lifted her hand. She held the humble-looking Tree Persona staff, ready to use. She raised it up. I kept one eye on Yakuna while I whirled my mace and smashed back a sudden wave of armored skeletons that attacked from the side, trying to push a wedge in between me and my friends.

Then Cara struck.

The emerald lightning that blasted in an expanding circle out from her staff made a great bright light in the gloomy Festered haze of the ruined castle. The crackling blast ripped out from her, ran up the suits of armor, and smashed them to bits as it exploded.

The blast had bought us a bit of time, but Cara was starting to shake with the effort of containing the magical energy.

“Cara!” I shouted, sprinting toward her through the piles of broken enemies.

“Leo! I can’t control it!”

I ran up to her and grabbed the staff. I gritted my teeth as the force of the Persona’s magic flooded through me. Ironside’s essence seemed to reach out through my armor and begin to absorb the energy.

Together, Cara and I began to bring the emerald lightning under control.

That was when Yakuna decided to make his move.

He had become an amorphous thing, a massive, bloated corpse-like giant. He stood on his stone block now and raised his sagging arms. The voice of the Festering boomed out an incantation that darkened the very air with its evil influence.

“To me!” he called. “To me!”

Kai and Toshiro had made it over to where we stood, but now the air was full of a rain of flying metal. All the suits of armor we had broken were rising up from where they had fallen and were knifing through the air toward Yakuna. They hit his massive form and coalesced around him.

“Now! Now!” I shouted. “We have to try the projectile weapons again! Cara, get your bow ready!”

I reached for Kitsune, and the shinobi aspect washed over me with a cool wave. I reached to my shuriken sash and pulled a handful of shuriken stars out, feeling the cold magic nearly burning with its intensity.

Cara fired a volley of arrows at the same time as I hurled a flight of shuriken stars. Fire and ice combined into a massive explosion, but as before, the thick orange flames and black smoke washed around Yakuna as if he were covered with a glass shield.

Nika, the woman in the cage, screamed wordlessly.

A sudden thought struck me. “The Persona powers! Let’s combine the Persona powers as we did before, but this time, let’s use them to counter a spell!”

Cara looked hopeful. “You’re right,” she said after a moment. “There’s a chance it might work. What spell?”

I didn’t have to think about it. “The lightning. It will flow along the ground and up under his shield. We can blast his spell from the inside outward.”

“I’m ready,” she said, looking grim but determined.

“We’ll hold off any enemies from this side while you do it,” Kai said, and Toshiro nodded. The horde of armored skeletons hung back for the moment, but they still menaced us from a distance with their swords and rusty spears.

“Now!” I said to Cara.

Together, we reached for the spirit realm, and as we did so, Cara slammed the staff into the ground and sent a bolt of lightning along the ground toward the obscene figure of Yakuna. Metal was slamming onto him from every side, and he was beginning to look as if he were some gigantic titan made of rusty steel. He roared with glee in his strength and power, and he laughed and beat his chest as more and more metal flew to him to build up his armor.

Cara and I were like a single combined awareness, hanging somewhere between the material world and the spirit realm. I could perceive her clearly and could also see the delicate way she held the lightning spell. I reached for her and wrapped my control of the spell around hers. I felt like a master swordsman gripping the timid hand of the apprentice to show her how to grip.

Instinctively, she understood. Her control of the magic steadied and expanded, and I fed my strength into the spell. The effect was massive. The lightning crackled along the ground, rushed up Yakuna’s stone block, and crackled around him. It blasted outward, filling and giving shape to the previously invisible dome that he used to protect himself.

Yakuna roared and gloated; the lightning didn’t seem to be able to harm him. But harming him with the lightning was not our plan.

“Now!” I said to Cara, and together we put all of our power into blasting outward with the spell.

There was a deafening crack as his protective barrier shattered like an eggshell under a hammer, and the shockwave threw everyone except me onto their backs. It washed around me like water around a stone. Yakuna roared his rage.

His protective field was broken.

In my mind’s eye, as clearly as if it were painted in front of me, I saw General Koshu, Yasei, and our other companions. The magical barrier holding them back broke, and they saw it. Like a gush of fetid water through a breaking dam, the Festering poured out around them, washing up the green valley and over the ridge, turning all the land gray, brown, and rotten.

Luckily, Cara’s potion was still affecting them, and they didn’t lose their courage. The horses screamed, and the tiger-like Byakko roared, but the riders were grim-faced and ready. Koshu gave the order and they thundered into the plain.

The vision passed.

Cara was clutching my hand. “We did it!” she cried. “We broke the barrier!”

“And Koshu and the others are coming. It won’t be long before they get here.”

“Let’s finish this horror off before they arrive,” Cara said fiercely.

“You keep Yakuna busy with arrows. I have an idea.”

She nodded once, and as another wave of armored skeletons rushed her, Kai and Toshiro leaped into action, holding the attackers off while Cara loaded up her bow and fired.

Still wearing the shinobi aspect of the Kitsune Persona, I sprinted toward the grotesquely armored Yakuna as fast as I could. Fire bloomed all over him as Cara’s arrows landed home, but through the thick plate metal, they couldn’t do much good. I could have tried using a coat of ice to blow his armor off, but I had another idea.

I wanted to try out my misdirection power.

As I sprinted over the ground toward him, his huge, mad eyes followed me. When I was just a few yards away from him, he raised up his hands. He now held a massive metal sword. It was rusted and filthy, a mockery of the beauty and grace of true Samurai swords. His voice gurgled and cackled wetly in his throat as he readied a swing.

I was headed for his right hand side, and that was where he aimed his swing. I used my teleportation ability at the last moment, and my previous position was hazed in a cloud of smoke while my body appeared on his left side. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I triggered my misdirection spell. His head swiveled from left to right, his bulbous eyes passing over me as though I wasn’t standing at his feet. I saw his eyes widen and his teeth pull back into a snarl.

“Where have you gone, Soul Binder?” Yakuna howled. “Are you really so cowardly as to flee from battle when your companions still fight?”

Not knowing how long it would work for, I changed direction at a sharp angle, dashing toward his left side. I had a kusarigama in my right hand, the ball and chain attachment on the top swinging. I flung the ball toward him, and the long chain snaked around his upper arm. He saw me then—I couldn’t keep the misdirection spell up while I was actually attached to him by a chain—but the spell had served its purpose. He’d missed me, and I was under his guard. I was able to pull myself toward him on the chain.

“You use the art of the shinobi?” he questioned. “I thought such tricks were beneath the Soul Binder.”

“I use whatever I can to rid the world of evil such as you!” I yelled as I grabbed the chain and started to scale Yakuna as if he were a cliff.

I ran up the misshapen armor, using the chain and my twin kusarigamas like ice picks to haul myself up. He was huge, easily five times my height now, and he stank like nothing I’d ever experienced before. Fire billowed around him as Cara’s arrows thudded into his armor.

“Go on, Leo!” she shouted, firing at his legs.

He stamped and roared, tormented by the flames and enraged at how I had tricked him. He was big, but he was slow. As I climbed him, he battered ineffectually at me with his free hand, flailing his sword around in the air with the other.

I reached his shoulder, leaping up there with my kusarigama in my hand. His head was ten paces long, and he turned his face to try to bite me with sword-like teeth, but I dodged him. I slammed my long, cruelly sharp kusarigama blade into his ear, puncturing the drum. He howled in pain, and black blood sprayed out and soaked me. The stench was incredible, but I leaped up and continued climbing.

When I reached the round dome of the top of his head, I transformed into the Ironside Persona and reached for my mace.

In the Ironside persona, I was much bigger and much heavier. My sheer weight anchored me on the slick, rotten skin of his head.

I raised my mace and put every ounce of weight and every glimmer of power into the swing as I smashed it into his head. His skull crumpled, his devilish eyes popped from their sockets, and his brain splattered beneath the force of my blow.

Then the giant Yakuna exploded.

Bits of him went everywhere, soaking the whole hilltop in a foul, steaming mess of rotten flesh and hot metal. I fell through him, the weight of the Ironside Persona bringing me down with a crash into the middle of the mess.

The shockwave of my landing blasted wreckage away from me on either side. All trace of the Festering was washed away in a rush of power. The armor suits fell lifeless to the ground, and even they seemed like noble monuments to ancient bravery rather than the foul relics they had been beforehand.

The clouds parted, and the sunlight came rushing in like a cleansing sea over sand.

“Thank you, Soul Binder,” a voice whispered, as though carried on a breeze. “Thank you for freeing me.”

In the distance of the now green and pleasant hillside, I saw a flash of red, white, and black: Koshu and the rest of the party were approaching.

Cara strode toward me, her arms outstretched.

“We did it, Leo!” she shouted. “We defeated him! We won!”

She clasped my hand in a warrior’s grip, then flung her arms around me.

I understood her elation. It had felt like we might lose for a little while there, especially because Toshiro and Kai did not have the magical abilities we had. The sooner we could bring Kai into the magical circle of power and give her the ability to use Persona powers and spells, the better.

Toshiro and Lady Kai approached, expressions of relief on their faces.

“My dear friend, Yakuna,” Toshiro said as he stared at the spot where I’d obliterated Yakuna. “To think that this was his final end.”

“I’m not sure that’s his end,” I said. “I think, somehow, his spirit lives on.”

“As a Persona?” Lady Kai asked.

“I’m not sure,” I answered. “All I know is that something spoke to me at the end there. It thanked me. I believe it was Yakuna’s true self.”

“I hope so,” Toshiro said. “I truly hope so.”

With a thought, I switched my Persona to the civilian garb of Ironside, and all the dirt and filth of battle disappeared. Cara did the same. It was a small benefit compared to the total power of our Personas, but avoiding the need to bathe after every battle was certainly a boon.

General Koshu and the others came storming up the hill at full speed, and he seemed disappointed to have missed the battle. Without delay, Kai gathered a group of her soldiers and, with a bit of difficulty, they managed to lower the cage which held the Tengu rebel leader, Nika.

I watched the tall, elegant figure of the Tengu leader with interest as she was released from captivity. She looked exhausted and leaned heavily on Kai.

When she pushed her hood back and uncovered her face, I was surprised to find that she was beautiful. The soft suggestion of feathers swept upward from her finely-curved cheeks and high, intelligent brow. Long, soft brown hair was wild about her face. Her lips were very full, and her large eyes glimmered a pale gray. There was something inhuman about her; it was subtle, but it was easy to see that she was Tengu rather than human. For all that, I was attracted to her exotic features as Kai led her away from the cage and the scene of battle. I figured an introduction was in order at some point, but, for now, it would be best to allow Nika to rest.

The soldiers quickly set up a tent, and Kai led the Tengu woman in. When Kai came out alone shortly afterward, she looked grave.

“Nika is not well,” she said, with a shake of her head. “She’s had a bad scare, and she is not immune to the terror of the Festering. It has taken a toll on her.”

Cara reached to her belt and pulled out a little vial of opaque crystal. She immediately handed it to Kai. “Give Nika some of this. It’s a powerful healing potion, and it’s also a strong sleeping draught. She’ll sleep until the morning, and when she wakes, she’ll feel much better.”

Kai smiled gratefully and took the potion. “Thank you, Cara,” she said. Their hands brushed as they passed the vial over, and Kai blushed as Cara smiled and raised her eyebrows at the tall Yamato woman. Kai turned and hurried back to the tent.

I looked at Cara. She was smiling, looking back and forth between me and Kai. “Do you feel that tugging sensation on your Persona awareness?” she asked.

I nodded. “I believe it’s Yakuna,” I said. “Give me a minute to speak to Koshu, then we can go somewhere private and answer that call. I think Yakuna might have something for us.”

General Koshu had done well in our absence, gaining the respect of the mercenaries and the Byakko. Toshiro’s little band seemed still a bit wary of him, and that was to be expected. He had led an attack against their house, after all, even if it had been a mistake. I gave orders to him to set up a camp here on the hilltop. We had tents and gear in plenty, and there was a stream and a little copse of woodland at the bottom of the hill which would provide firewood. Koshu did not delay, and soon the white shapes of the tents were popping up like mushrooms all over the green hilltop.

Now that the Festering had passed away from this place with the influence of Yakuna, the land had returned at a stroke to the beautiful green space which it had been before. Most of the day had passed, and the evening sun was golden over the now-lush green of the hills.

Cara and I walked away from the bustle, down the hill to an open space where piles of old stone were tumbled under trailing vines and thick grass. We looked at one another, then answered the call of the spirit realm.

Unlike previous times, the place where we sat did not fade, but it shivered as if it had been shaken, and I looked around in surprise. We had definitely opened the gate to the spirit realm—I could feel it—but there was no visible change.

“What...?” began Cara, but I stopped her.

“Look,” I said quietly, pointing.

A little way down the hill, a tall, grave-looking man was standing. He wore a blue robe in the Yamato style, and he had a samurai sword at his belt. I knew at once that we were looking at Yakuna.

He approached us slowly, his face looking down. When he reached the edge of the ring of stones we were sitting at, he bowed low.

“Thank you, Soul Binder,” he said. “I am ashamed to have been caught by the Festering so completely. Without your intervention, it would have caused so much damage to the land of Yamato, but you have saved me, and it, from destruction.”

“That’s what we came here to do,” I said to him. “I’m glad you can have peace now.”

“In thanks for your help, I have something I can give you to help you in your quest.”

“A Persona?” Cara asked, but Yakuna shook his head.

“Not that. But when you are in battle, you can summon me. You can call on me, and I will be able to send a spirit warrior to aid you, for a short while. It’s only a small service, but it’s all I have the power to do now...”

He was fading, disappearing into the grass. We heard a long, relieved sigh, and he was gone.

“I wonder what he meant?” said Cara.

“We’ll find out when we’re next in battle,” I said. “Whatever form the warrior he sends takes, it will be useful. Every advantage is going to be useful in this battle.”

“Every advantage?”

I heard the flirtatious note in her voice and glanced over at her.

“Yes, every advantage...”

“Including Kai having access to Persona magic?”

I laughed. “Yes! Absolutely! I think she’s keen to have that herself, and I’m keen to bring her in.”

Cara’s voice was husky as she replied, “Me too.”

We summoned our upgrade diagrams and spent our Renown. Instead of looking for anything new at this point, we decided it would be best to choose upgrades that increased the effectiveness of what we already had. Working quickly, we upgraded the explosive power of Cara’s lightning storm spell, and the strength of my mace. She found an upgrade to make her potions even more effective, and to increase the speed of her draw when she went for her bow. I upgraded the Ironside Persona with extra power in my shockwave attack, so that I could stomp the ground to send a crowd of enemies flying back from me if necessary.

As we worked, my mind was filled with thoughts of Kai, and I could tell that Cara’s mind was also on what we both hoped would come next.

Hand in hand, we made our way back up to the camp.

Kai was waiting for us when we reached the camp. She had been sitting outside the tent which had been put up for me and Cara, looking thoughtfully out over the ruins and smiling. Now, when she caught sight of us approaching, she jumped to her feet and turned to us.

She tossed her head, and her long, dark hair swung about her head and down her back. The golden light of late evening played across her bronzed face, and her dark eyes were sparkling as she looked us up and down.

“How is your friend?” Cara asked.

“Nika? She’s sleeping. That draught of yours sent her straight into a deep sleep. She was terrified, but physically unhurt. We’ll hear her story tomorrow, I’m sure, but for now, I’m not concerned for her. She just needs rest.”

Cara nodded. “I’m glad to hear my potion was the right thing. She should sleep until morning now.”

“So we have the night to ourselves now?” A slow smile crept across Kai’s face, and was returned by Cara. At the same time, they both looked at me.

“Well, I think we can find a profitable way to spend our time until tomorrow,” I said. I let my eyes travel up and down both women’s bodies, appreciating the contrast between Cara’s fair skin and hair, and Kai’s bronze skin and black hair. They were two very beautiful women.

“I’m sure we can,” Cara said, and we all laughed.

The sun was setting, and we checked in with Toshiro and Koshu, making sure all was well. Scouts had been sent out, and there was no sign of enemies anywhere near. The soldiers were all settling down around the big fire, some way away from the tents, and they had meat and drink and seemed content to relax after the day’s labors.

“I’ve got my own supplies,” Kai said, indicating the pack she had picked up. “Some fruit and sweets, and some wine. Shall we take them back to your tent to eat, Leo?”

I glanced around the camp at the contented soldiers. We were not needed here tonight. “Let’s do that.”

I led the two women back to the big tent which had been set up for us, striding through the gathering dusk. Kai and Cara followed me quickly, and Cara hurried forward to push the tent flap up to let us both in.

Inside, the spacious tent was warm. A brazier of charcoal warmed the space, and two globe lanterns sat on a low table at one side. Rich furs carpeted the ground, so that every inch of the tent was covered in deep softness.

Cara and Kai looked at me expectantly. In the light of the lanterns, I could see the flush in Cara’s cheeks, and Kai’s full lips were slightly parted as she glanced from one to the other of us. I could see what was on their minds, but they were waiting for me to make the move.

“Kai,” I said without preamble, “we’d like to bring you into our Persona circle. Would you like that too?”

She nodded slowly. “Even if there was no magical power to share, I would still want to be joined with your... circle. Leofwine, Cara, I’ve never known anyone like you.”

The lust was plain to hear in her voice.

Cara’s eyes shone as I stepped forward and claimed Kai’s mouth with a kiss. I felt the Yamato woman’s body trembling with excitement and desire as I ran my hands up and down her sides, gripping her hips and letting one hand slip down to feel her ass. Her mouth tasted warm and sweet, and her tongue came out to meet mine. I heard a rustling noise and broke the kiss to see Cara wearing the slinky green dress again. Her feet were bare.

Boldly, she stepped forward and joined me next to Kai. She dropped one hand to touch Kai’s hip and laid her other on mine. She leaned forward, her lips parted.

Kai seemed to hesitate.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She laughed. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong, I just... well, I’ve never kissed another woman before, that’s all.”

“Well, I have,” Cara said, and leaned in again.

This time, Kai tentatively met the kiss. I watched as their lips met, gently at first, then more firmly. I pressed my grip on Kai’s ass and felt her respond, grinding her hip back against my hand. My other hand flowed up the soft fabric that covered Cara’s back, feeling the tension in the bunched muscles there ease under my touch. As the two women’s mouths parted, I leaned in and joined them, making a three-way kiss.

When we parted, Cara was a little out of breath.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go and lie down.”

I drew the two women after me, over to where the blankets and skins were piled thickest. I was wearing the non-combat aspect of the Ironside Persona, and as I drew the women down to the furs, they both leaned over and together raised the black woolen jerkin up over my head. They were laughing together as they did so, Cara stealing another kiss from the beautiful Yamato warrior.

Kai gasped as she looked down at my bare chest and iron-hard belly. Her mouth open, she leaned over me, tracing one finger down the ridge of my chest and toward my navel. Then she and Cara were both kissing my chest and torso. I leaned my head back, feeling their lips and tongues moving over my shoulders and chest. Then Kai was tugging at my belt, and Cara was massaging the bulge at my crotch.

“Wait, let me get out of this cumbersome garb,” Kai gasped.

“I’ll help you,” Cara said.

I propped myself up on my elbows and watched as Cara moved behind Kai to help her out of her leather jerkin. Kai had already laid her sword aside, and now she held her black hair up out of the way as Cara worked the buckles holding her jerkin in place. After a moment, the buckles came undone, and the leather slipped away.

Kai’s breasts seemed to leap out from their confinement; her jerkin was tight, and it had concealed just how full they were. Kai threw her head back and gasped in delight as Cara and I both leaned in, me from the front and Cara coming around from behind.

Cara’s eyes met mine as we both brought our hands and tongues around to pleasure Kai’s plump nipples, and Kai let out a groan of pure pleasure as we did so. I reached down and flipped the green silk out of the way, one hand finding the smooth, warm skin of Cara’s firm ass as my other kneaded Kai’s luscious breasts. After a moment, we all seemed to have the same thought at the same time.

“Too many clothes!” Kai gasped, and Cara and I both laughed. In a moment, Kai had kicked off her boots and slid her tight trousers down to her ankles and away. Cara lifted her dress up and over her head. She was wearing nothing underneath.

I hauled my trousers off and chucked them aside. Both women gasped out loud as my erect cock was released from captivity. Their eyes met for a moment, then they both dropped down in front of me.

First, Kai took it into her mouth. Cara, leaning over beside her, lifted the other woman’s black hair out of the way so that she could get a good view. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as Kai slipped the full length of me into her mouth. I had been impressed with Cara’s skill at this, and I was delighted to find that Kai’s skill was no less.

Cara let out a small laugh of amazement at how deep Kai was able to take me. I felt Kai’s tongue sliding around the base of my shaft, then a bolt of pleasure shot through me as Cara lay down on her back and slipped her head between my thighs, taking my balls in her mouth and gently sucking on them. She was now directly below Kai, and Kai reached down to touch Cara’s smaller breasts as she moved her mouth steadily around my cock.

After a few minutes had passed, she slipped it out of her mouth with a gasp, my shaft glistening with her saliva. Cara leaned up and took a turn at pleasuring me, stealing a kiss from Kai on the way up. Cara worked the tip with her tongue and lips, and the shaft with her hand. She was smaller than Kai, and not able to go as deep. The difference in their techniques was delicious. Kai brought her face close, and the two women began to take turns. I thrust gently back and forth as first Cara, then Kai, then Cara again slipped my cock into their mouths.

Then Cara shifted so that she was side on to me, and Kai, understanding her intention, did the same. They brought their mouths together in a kiss, and I slipped my cock between their lips. With one mouth on either side, I thrust more strongly, gazing down in admiration at the smooth backs and perfect asses of my two partners as they pleasured me together.

I reached down and ran my hands through their hair, and I heard Kai gasp and moan with pleasure as I caught a handful of her hair and gripped it in my fist.

“Yes...” was all she said, then moaned louder as I took a firmer grip on her hair.

Cara sat up and put her hand on Kai’s hair as well. She met my eyes and smiled as Kai moaned, “Oh, yes!”

I remembered the moment we had shared when experimenting with Personas, when it had seemed to me that Kai might be one of those women who enjoyed the feeling of being dominated and even restrained during sex. Cara was kneeling with her legs spread, pleasuring herself with her left hand while her right hand was gripping Kai’s hair along with mine. She met my eyes as she pushed Kai’s head down onto my cock again.

Kai took it into her mouth with enthusiasm, and Cara moved behind her, lifting a hand to begin experimentally spanking her. Kai moaned loudly and worked me harder, and Cara spanked her a little harder. After a few slaps, Kai collapsed to the floor and rolled over. She spread her legs and her arms, inviting us in.

Cara and I swapped sides, and Cara knelt over Kai’s face, lowering herself onto Kai’s mouth. As she did so, Kai brought her arms up to grip Cara’s hips. I put my head between Kai’s thighs, feeling her wetness against my mouth and tongue as I began to taste her. The two women’s groans mixed as we all pleasured each other.

After a moment, Cara leaned forward, joining me between Kai’s legs. I took one look at Cara’s ass in the air above Kai’s face, and decided it was time for fucking.

I left Cara to pleasure Kai with her tongue, and moved to where I could get inside Cara from behind. Cara’s moans of pleasure were loud as I slammed my cock into her as Kai continued eating Cara.

The three of us moved in unison, rocking back and forth as the women worked toward a climax. I felt my pleasure building, but I knew I could hold onto my load as long as I wanted. I had never had any issues in that regard. I smiled to myself at that thought. It was good to be able to do this for my partners.

Cara reached her climax, and her moans of pleasure must have reached out of the tent through the whole camp. I grinned as I pulled out, and Cara rolled away, gasping for air. Her face and hair and hands were covered in Kai’s wetness. She drew her hands down and rubbed it on her nipples as she lay in the afterglow of her orgasm.

Kai’s mouth was open, and I slipped my cock in when she reached up toward me. Again, she took it unbelievably deep, and seemed to derive a lot of pleasure from doing so.

When Cara had recovered, I withdrew, and Kai glanced at us both before asking breathlessly, “Cara, will you restrain me while Leo fucks me?”

Cara let out a little laugh, then kissed Kai’s mouth. “If that’s what you want,” she said.

Kai nodded.

She knelt and held out her wrists submissively, and Cara bound them gently with a piece of soft cloth. Then, together, Cara and I laid Kai down on her back on the soft furs of the tent. Cara pulled her bound arms up and back and held them against the ground. Kai was not really restrained—she could have escaped from Cara’s grip easily if she’d wanted to—but she clearly felt dominated enough to get pleasure from it. Her breasts pointed at the ceiling of the tent, and she closed her eyes. Her lips were parted, showing her perfect teeth.

I leaned forward and gently pushed her thighs apart.

“Oh, yes, Leo,” she moaned, “I want you to fill me completely and utterly. Please...”

I looked Cara in the eye, running my eyes over her flushed white skin, her blonde hair which was now wild about her face, and down over the darkness of our new partner’s skin. They were a beautiful contrast, Cara’s fair skin and hair and Kai’s bronzed skin and black hair. I teased Kai for a moment, slipping the tip of my cock back and forth across her slick outer lips and tickling her clitoris with it.

Cara laughed aloud as Kai bucked and begged me, “Please, Leo, please, fill me now...”

I was not one to ignore the request of a beautiful woman.

When I pushed my cock into her welcoming warmth, I felt how close she was to climax. Cara restrained her wrists as Kai had asked, and even put her other hand down to Kai’s mouth. Kai took Cara’s fingers into her mouth, and I knew she would be tasting herself on Cara’s hands.

I reached over and began to pleasure Cara with my free hand, while taking in the warm glory of Kai’s full breasts and her strong hips as she clenched around my cock. We held like that for what seemed like a timeless space, building toward something incredible.

When I leaned down and took one of Kai’s big nipples in my mouth, biting firmly but gently on it with my front teeth, that tipped her over the edge. She clenched against me, and her whole body jumped. She cried out, tossing her head back and forth as she came.

I let myself go, even as I brought Cara to a second orgasm with my fingers.

Light flashed around us, blue and green and red, as I felt my seed pumping into Kai’s depths. Kai cried out her pleasure, and as Cara let her wrists go, Kai brought her arms around both of us. We were transported to another place, hanging as if suspended in the air.

Below us, I saw a great round world, bright green landmasses shining out from dark seas. Bright stars glimmered in the void behind it, and storm clouds whirled over the surface of the world. All around us, I could feel the powerful presences, the Personas, a nearly infinite number of them just waiting to be claimed. The circle of power flowed between Cara, Kai, and me, and the spell was complete.

We were one.

When we came to ourselves, we were lying in a warm, sweet-smelling embrace on the rugs on the floor of the tent. The lamps had dimmed, and the red light of the brazier flowed over the sweat-dappled skin of my two beautiful partners. I was lying in the middle, one woman on each side. Their hair, black and blonde, was tangled together, flowing over my chest and on the pillow below my head. I had an arm around each of their shoulders, and they each had a hand resting comfortably on my cock.

“We did it,” Kai murmured sleepily. “You brought me into your circle. Thank you both so much.”

Then she heaved a great sigh of satisfaction and slipped into a deep sleep. Cara kissed me, then snuggled into the crook of my arm.

With one hand, I flipped a blanket over the three of us.

Before Yamato was completely cleansed of the Festering, we still had a Shogun to defeat, and likely a few minor devils along the way, but now another warrior had joined this quest. With Kai wielding the power of the Personas, our chance of success increased exponentially.

As I looked at the two gorgeous women draped over me, my eyes settled on the sleeping form of Kai. What form would the Personas take when they manifested in her? Ironside, Kitsune, and Tree. The trio would all function differently under her command.

And what of the power Yakuna had promised us?

What other worlds might we venture into at the Keeper’s command, with Personas and beautiful female warriors of their own?

These were all questions that could wait for morning. For now, I was content with my lot in life. With an arm around each woman, I closed my eyes and allowed myself to drift into sleep.

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Dante King is an author of Men’s Adventure fiction in various flavors. His books involve strong male protagonists who know what they want and do what’s required to get it.

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