I ended up taking a panel out, so this page was only six panels.
I’m not super happy with the rendering of the fire. It was too dark without the yellow, but looks a little too technicolor with it. Maybe I should have just stuck with regular orange and yellow?
Fire, dead things, and an unhappy protagonist below. This chapter will continue for five more pages, and then things will be less unhappy.
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Image description:
A six-panel, mostly black-and-white comic page.
Panel 1: We see a hand wearing one of the tied-on bracers we’ve seen the samurai wear and a fingerless glove, reaching out and grasping a wooden post that appears partially burned. There is snow in the air.
Panel 2: The hand is attached to Ichiro, who is using it to keep his balance and drag himself the last couple of steps up the hill. He places his other hand on the hilt of his sword. His eyes are wide in a sort of flat, exhausted surprise. The post is part of a scorched and broken fence. Snow continues to fall.
Panel 3: A skeleton wearing a helmet and a breastplate lies on the ground, empty eye sockets staring at the sky. A few bits of charred flesh cling to the skull and ribs. In the mud is the footprint of a huge creature, a cloven hoof with two toes behind, like a wild boar–though the print is larger than the skull.
Panel 4: A wide view of the Satake estate, as it was seen when the clan samurai approached the crossroads, now in ruins. The trees are burnt down to their trunks, and the houses have collapsed. Strange fire in red, purple, and yellow appears to have been burning for some time. Red sparks fly in the air among the snowflakes. The helmeted skeleton lies in the foreground, and two others are strewn between buildings. The faint shapes of other human figures burn in the ruins of the largest house.
Panel 5: Ichiro slumps against the fence post, one knee drawn up and his sword held loosely as it rests on the ground beside him. His eyes close. The skeletons smolder behind him. It’s still snowing, or maybe ash is falling from the sky.
Panel 6: A closer shot of his face. The shadows grow deeper.
Caption: Fate, it seems, has denied you vengeance.
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