The Disfavored Hero by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

dark, dark eyes. Ushii peered in abject dread at the slobbering oozing beasts that crawled forth to feed on the slain Shirakian slaves. But Tomoe Gozen appeared as unconcerned and as discompassionate as on the day of her similar ascent from hell.
    Dawn bloodied the sky. Warlords on armored horses and eight thousand samurai afoot came in orderly formation to the valley they sought to reclaim for Shojiro Shigeno. Shigeno himself led the four united clans. He was fierce to see, angry at his ruin and the slaughter of his peasants, anxious to regain honor and have vengeance. Long hair flowed from beneath his helmet. His armor was lacquered to a shining ebony. He sat high on a stallion bred of the same stock as Tomoe’s lamented Raski.
    To Shigeno’s left and right were two magician-ninja. They were jono and not to be confused with ordinary ninja, who were clever but knew no magic. The mysterious jono were descendants of an elite offshoot of the ancient spy class, an offshoot which had evolved into a less underhanded cult of supremely deadly priests and priestesses proficient in martial sorcery. Even the Shogun dared not challenge them. Their presence indicated the Mikado’s interest in this battle, for only Amaterasu’s godchild commanded jono.
    One of these jono was a man, the other a woman. They were swaddled in grey robes so that even the major portion of their faces was hidden. They sat astride horses too slender for war, but the riders’ prowess was not to be underestimated. The priest and priestess were Shinto warriors, favored by the hundred thousand myriad of Shinto deities. Neither samurai nor common ninja were any match for them.
    What the several warlords, two jono, and numerous samurai confronted in the valley were two mounted samurai—a woman with unnatural eyes, and a man frothing with insanity—who captained an army of slobbering, disorderly monstrosities. The creatures stood awry, naked with rare exceptions, waving mallets, sickles, flails and swords all made of stone. They champed crooked teeth and howled like a haunted wind for blood.
    The two incredible samurai rode forth in slow, stately procession, and the legions of ghouls waited for command to follow. With precise movement, Tomoe Gozen raised one arm, as might a dream-warrior, to signal. The howling beasts began to rush forward with unexpected speed. They came slouching, crawling, hopping, scrabbling, in ungainly strides with bloodlust upon their inhuman visages.
    Ushii and the woman drew their swords, spurred their steeds.
    Their foe were momentarily stunned by the vision, not having been told they would oppose demons.
    The two varied armies clashed, and the red blood of samurai mixed with the green and yellow fluids of the ghouls. The beasts were awkward, but no easy adversaries. They could lose limbs and still come on; they could do battle even without heads, though they could not be sure who they struck blindly. Even their severed parts would fight: a bodiless arm beat the ground with a hammer; lost fingers inched their way up samurai armor. Only the magician-ninja could deal blows of anything like a lasting effect, and even the ghouls felled by those two would spring back to life if touch by another of their ranks.
    The magician-ninja produced darts, apparently from out of nothingness but perhaps from their sleeves, tossing them into the chests and eyes of ghouls. The darts exploded on contact, tearing rib cages and opening skulls. The victims of the magician-ninja hooted furiously and beat on the ground and sometimes appeared to die—but no samurai in service of the warlords fared so well in hurting them.
    At cost of many lives, Ushii was dragged from his mount. His horse fled the field of battle in terror, and Ushii stood alone, making wild sweeping gestures with his sword. They who surrounded him were careful with the placement of feet, balance of hip, field of vision, while the madman thrashed among them. In the hands