Elfhome

Prince True Flame glanced toward Tommy. “I will send word to my sister. She will have to deal with the Stone Clan somehow. We need more domana or we will fall here. The Stone Clan will want a scapegoat for this if we cannot recover Jewel Tear. They will want you, cousin, but I will offer them the oni spawn.”

#

They let him go. At first he was surprised, but then he realized that they wanted the Stone Clan to waste time trying to find him. So far the elves couldn’t find their ass with both hands. An elfin carpenter, however, was more thorough than a human one because the elf had forever to hammer down nails. The Stone Clan would find Tommy eventually.

Prince True Flame suggested that if they recovered Jewel Tear before the Stone Clan sent more domana, everything be fine. Tommy wasn’t going to leave it to the elves to find the female.

He circled Ginger Wine’s, considering all he knew about Chiyo, the oni and what he seen in the smoldering enclave. Chiyo had disappeared the night Lord Tomtom had died. Tommy had heard that Kajo wanted the pregnant female for the whelping pens. The kitsune abilities allowed the fox-tainted oni to wield a great deal of political power despite their status of lesser bloods. Normally Kajo wouldn’t have been able to cage Chiyo but with Pittsburgh stranded on Elfhome, she was fair game. Much to his father’s annoyance, Kajo had ordered Chiyo turned over to the whelping pens and its experienced mid-wives. The rumor was that if the kitsune survived the birth of her over-sized puppies, Kajo planned to endlessly bred Chiyo to his kennel of wargs.

Something messed with his timing, making him rush the attack. One thing the oni were good at was waiting for the perfect moment — immortality gave them infinite patience when it came to hunting. What triggered the attack? The timing seemed randomly chosen — like something a human running on clocks would pick instead of the timeless oni.

And why had Kajo taken Jewel Tear? To use her as bait so the elves ran in circles, screaming at each other? If that was his plan, it was working.

The biggest freaking problem with this so-called war was that Kajo was keeping one step in front of the elves. What Tommy needed was the elves find the oni so that both sides would forget about his family.

Where the hell was Kajo hiding his army?

Tommy had known of a handful of small camps within the city but they’d all been abandoned after Tomtom’s attempt to kill Windwolf exposed the oni’s presence. It was one thing to hide in the city when oni were myths, but now the humans were in the middle of a war they couldn’t ignore. Pittsburgh was a sprawling half-abandoned city, but filled with eyes. Sixty thousand humans meant someone would notice masses of oni eating and sleeping and shitting. Even the humans should be able to smell a nest in this heat.

The oni had been gearing up for war since the first Startup. Thirty years was a long time to stay completely hidden, even in Pittsburgh. There had to be a main camp outside of the city. Certainly there were hundreds of miles of virgin forest in all directions. Prince True Flame might be right that the oni were taking Jewel Tear west, out of range of Spell Stones. Anything north east of the city would be visible from incoming gossamers. Straight east was the train…

Kajo had lesser bloods working the trains since the elves laid the last track. It would have been simple to load up a train in Pittsburgh, stop somewhere between the city and the east coast and drop supplies to an oni camp. The oni could build as large a camp they wanted as long as they stayed out of sight of the train and incoming gossamers. Hell, if they stopped the train on one of the bridges, they could have used a crane and pallet system to load onto barges. That way they could ship heavy equipment without leaving a road for the elves to notice.

The odd timing made sense too. Since Tinker had rattled cages at the train station, Kajo might be losing access to it shortly. Tonight might have been the last chance to move something risky — like a female elf.

If Tommy could find this camp, he could collide the elves and the oni together, and maybe get Jewel Tear back. Between the two, maybe his family would be left alone.

25: Unbounded Brilliance

Banging woke Oilcan. It sounded like someone was trying to break down the front door with their knocking. Oni wouldn’t knock, so Oilcan felt safe answering it. He slipped out of the safe room without waking the children.

The peephole showed a wall of sekasha on his porch. He recognized Windwolf’s First, Wraith Arrow and Prince True Flame’s First Red Knife among the Hand of Wyverns. Red Knife stepped forward, eclipsing Oilcan’s view as the male raised his fist to knock again.

“Shit.” Oilcan breathed. Why was the First of two clans pounding on his door? What could possibly unite them on his doorstep? The door jumped under the assault of Red Knife’s knocking.