Page 16 of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

Xifeng cried out in horror when she saw the young soldier’s plight. He stood in a circle of blazing branches, cornered by the attackers wielding the torches. At first, one of them appeared to be trying to save Ken, flinging liquid at him from a metal flask.

But it was too thick to be water, and Xifeng realized—when the others applied their torches to Ken’s body and the fire raged even more ferociously—that the assassin had been flinging oil.

Hideki and Wei rushed to save him, but it was too late. Within seconds, Ken’s body had become an inferno of red-and-orange tongues lapping at his skin. A sob ripped through Xifeng’s throat as she watched him writhe in a haze of blood and smoke and bodies, finally collapsing to the ground as the flames consumed him. Ken, with his shy ways and his stories and his boyish love of adventure—gone.

Shiro shouted his name, then turned his anguished face in Xifeng’s direction, eyes fixed above her in horror. She heard a great rustling, and this time, she did not resist. She turned her face upward and screamed at what she saw.

Faces, thousands of beastly faces in the treetops. They belonged to no earthly man, for they were red like fire, red like love and death, and hovered between the leaves like bloody fruit. They gazed with equal hatred upon Wei’s group and the masked attackers.

Wei and Hideki were still fighting off the remaining assassins, but even the sharp grating of metal upon metal could not hide what came next: a sound in the trees like a collective breath, as though all of the faces inhaled together.

Xifeng crawled backward, away from the tree in which a dozen of them glimmered like demonic stars. She did not want to be close by when they exhaled.

Tears for Ken burned her cheeks as Shiro yelled, “Tengaru!”

In the brief interlude that followed, she thought how cruelly ironic it was that the young soldier had died right before he could see the beings he had heard of in his grandmother’s stories. A hysterical laugh escaped her, drowned out by a fierce, roaring rush of wind—the exhale she had anticipated—and thetengaruleapt from the trees.

The men on the path turned as one. In the firelight, the demons’ true faces were revealed in all of their terrifying glory: ancient and wild, not quite horse and not altogether inhuman. Their long, angular heads ended in two narrow nostrils and a slash of a sharp-toothed mouth, and were crowned with two viciously curved horns of ivory. Their eyes flared like night fire, full of life and intelligence... and hatred, as their pointed ears swiveled to catch the sound of one of the assassins wetting himself noisily.

Their slim, orange-red bodies smelled like the forest itself, like ancient soil unearthed from the bowels of the world. Xifeng shuddered at thewrongnessof them, of the horse’s head and neck poised on a lithe wildcat’s body, with a barbed, serpentine tail of soot-black.

Shiro threw himself in front of Wei and Hideki. “We do not mean any harm,” he said in a calm, firm voice. He gripped his dagger, but it was pointed downward toward his feet. “We are only travelers on our way to the Imperial City.”

Thetengarunumbered in the hundreds and were the size of large dogs. Five talons emerged from each of their massive paws. Ferns and shrubs fell apart beneath their lethal points, and Xifeng had no doubt flesh would as well.

The one who appeared to be their leader advanced until its wicked, intelligent face was inches from Shiro’s nose. The muscles rippled along its elegant haunches as it flexed its tail menacingly. Then, in a voice as old as the wind, it said, “We are the demon guardians of the forest. We protect it from men likeyou,who set fire to our trees without a second thought.”

“We do not mean any harm,” Shiro repeated, and the demon’s ears flicked at his respectful tone. “We were ambushed and our attackers carry the torches, as you see.”

Thetengaruhad formed a tight circle around the masked men, who pressed close together as the demons snarled and snapped at their ankles. Several beasts closed in behind Wei and Hideki, and one of them was even watching Xifeng through the screen of ferns and grass. She shrank back as Wei turned to her, lips forming her name.

“Day by day,” thetengarurasped, “we see our trees felled and leaves trampled. The beauty of this world is fading all too fast through the cruelty and thoughtlessness of men.”

“These are the men who killed our friends and set fire to your branches,” Shiro said adamantly, indicating the attackers with his free hand. “We were merely passing through. We bring important correspondence to Emperor Jun from the king of Kamatsu.”

The demons’ eyes flickered at the wordKamatsu,spoken in Shiro’s lilting accent. The leader turned its back, and Xifeng saw with relief that thetengarubelieved the ambassador. They fixed their stares on the masked assassins, pronouncing judgment, just as one of the panickedmen leapt forward and began swinging his sword, felling several demons. A pulse of anger vibrated through the creatures as though they shared one body and their mouths drew back in a collective scream of fury. They leapt onto the attackers, talons slicing clothes and flesh like ribbons.

Shiro, Hideki, and Wei scrambled backward, tripping over branches and Isao’s remains. Wei opened his arms and Xifeng ran into them, pressing her face against his chest. She knew she would hear the slashing of sharp talons and the endless screaming long after this night.

But the cries of pain stopped within seconds. Xifeng opened one eye to see the last surviving assassin stab atengaruwith his spear. Four of its comrades immediately pinned him against a tree while a fifth smashed its barbed tail against the man’s broken body. He collapsed in a lifeless, unmoving heap of flesh and bone.

Slowly, thetengaruturned as one to face the survivors and approached in unison, one blood-splattered paw at a time.

Wei’s knuckles tensed on the hilt of his sword. “Let us go.”

“Let you go?” the demon leader sneered. “Let you go, when our fallen lie like crushed poppies?”

The woodland had become a gory burial ground of men andtengaru. Their torn bodies made odd, dark shapes across the forest floor. Suddenly, the demons nearest the corpses spun in a blur of red and orange. The whirl of activity removed the corpses and put out the dying embers, and then they vanished, leaving only threetengaru, who faced the survivors with suspicious eyes.

“We have done nothing to wrong you, great guardians,” Shiro said quietly.

“Haven’t you? You lured death and evil into our midst,” the demon replied. “Those killers were sent after you to ensure all in your party died. We were summoned to help you.”

Xifeng trembled at the truth in those words. Had thetengarunot intervened, and with only Hideki and Wei able to fight, they would havebeen overpowered and slaughtered, one by one.But who had known they would need aid?

“We seek to save our forest, not you,” thetengarucontinued. “We’d do better to kill you and be done with the whole affair.”

Shiro’s brow furrowed. “I assume the blame. I am ambassador to Kamatsu’s king. The assassins may have been sent by someone who opposes our treaty with Emperor Jun.”

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