World's Edge by Ryan Kirk Read Free Book Online Page A

her part, but he went.
    The path to the clearing was easy to follow, and the ground flew underneath Ryuu’s feet. He maintained a steady trot, his senses out and aware, dedicated to not being hunted again. He was ready for the shadows, but there were none to be found. Ryuu came to the clearing, his natural curiosity overwhelming his reluctance to leave Moriko’s side. The signs of the battle were all around, present even to an untrained eye. Grass was trampled and stained brown from blood. So much blood. Ryuu knew much of it was his and Moriko’s. There was more blood than he would have imagined. The two of them had been lucky.
    But the obvious signs of battle were not what drew his attention. His heart raced, and he drew his sword, battle instincts kicking in. He threw out his sense, overwhelmed by the stimulus he brought in. He focused but found nothing. He pushed his sense out even further, dangerous in the old woods, teeming with life as it was. It would be easy to lose his mind. Despite the flood of information coming in, Ryuu couldn’t find what he was looking for. There were no shadows. But there weren’t any bodies in the clearing either.
    Ryuu double-checked his surroundings, but he held no doubts he was in the right clearing. All the signs of battle surrounded him. But there were no bodies, and dead people didn’t move on their own. Ryuu knew they were dead. He had checked them himself.
    Ryuu closed his eyes and searched his memory. He located the place where the bodies should have been. There was plenty of evidence. Impressions in the grass, pools of coagulated blood, the bodies had definitely fallen there. But they were gone.
    He knelt down next to each impression, trying to create a picture of what had happened. Unfortunately, he wasn’t an expert tracker, and the signs around the battlefield were too chaotic for him to decipher. Either they had walked off or they had been carried off, but Ryuu couldn’t prove either guess. He supposed their bodies could have just vanished, but that was getting too far out into the realm of magic, and magic was something he didn’t believe in. The battle had almost taken his and Moriko’s lives, and it wasn’t over.
    At the thought of Moriko, Ryuu froze. If the bodies had been taken, the most logical explanation was that there were other shadows present, and she was alone and in no condition to fight them. He sheathed his sword as he took off at a dead sprint towards the hut.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 5
     
    The sun rose on Akira as he completed his morning ritual of staring off into the south, waiting for something, anything to happen. He had been at the head of the pass for almost a half moon, expecting any news at all. Spring was already turning into summer this far south, and the green grass was slowly retreating against the steady onslaught of dry heat. In another moon the prairie in front of him would be brown. He supposed it was still a better color than red.
    Akira didn’t know what he was looking for, what he was waiting for. But he kept coming back, morning after morning. Something was happening in the south. A storm was building, and he feared its intensity. The scout’s story had been unbelievable. Even once he had fully recovered, he told the story of an entire clan being decimated by a handful of warriors. The story had circulated. Akira had considered trying to halt it, but stories had a way of spreading. Like a wildfire, they would find the one gap in your defenses and blow out of proportion. Best to let it spread. Better than maintaining the appearance of secrecy.
    Maybe he was searching too hard for an enemy. Like all nobility, he had been brought up in the arts of war. He thirsted for an enemy in front of him. Despite the tradition fading into legend, he still believed the purest combat was one person testing their steel against another. He despised an unknown enemy, an enemy that hid in shadows. Better the army in front of you than the