by Ronan Frost
Chapter Nine
A mist of rain hung in the air when I awoke, deathly cold and still. Sometime in the night the fire had died, the ashes dull grey. It was that deep hour of the night when even the moon had fled, darkness filling everything, dawn a forgotten promise. Yobutomo was awake, upon his haunches at my side, the blade of his axe a crescent shadow upon shadows. I could not see Yobutomo’s features, but I saw him shake his head with slow deliberation and indicate to his mouth that I should be silent. My ears strained but heard nothing but frogs calling in the distance and the far away wind rising and falling through the treetops.
I held still for a long time, my eyes darting from shadow to shadow, trying to look in all directions at once, the action of rotating my head seemingly making the joints in my spine click deafeningly. It felt that as soon as I looked in one direction I would feel someone’s gaze boring into the back of my head so I would spin about again.
I do not know how much time passed. Nothing happened; the frogs continued to cry, the darkness of the night held. At some point my confused thoughts met with troubled dreams, and everything melded into darkness.
Somehow, I must have slept again. I was laying down and opening my eyes met with the pale suffused light of dawn.
I rubbed crusted sleep from my eyes and levered myself upright; the old man was gone. Fog shrouded the forest so densely that all I saw was the trunks of trees fading into the grey. I had no idea of the time of day, the light grey and indistinct. My skin crawled, the atmosphere eerie and ethereal; with no wind all sounds seemed to be without direction, whispers of ghosts and spirits.
I threw aside the damp cloak that covered me and pulled on my boots, wincing at my newly formed blistered pushed against the familiar surface. I hesitated, torn between wanting to call out for Yobutomo and fearing to break that foreboding silence, and then saw movement of vague outlines deep in the mist, taking a long moment to confirm that it was Yobutomo, his upright manner of walking distinct in his goblin-sandals. He was with another yamabushi, and a moment later joined by a third emerging from a different direction. One held a longbow in the manner of mounted archers, with the arrow nocked at one-third of the way up its length, half-raised and ready at a moment’s notice to draw and fire. The other was armed with a thick wooden staff taller than a man, inlaid with metal grips and guards, with a single-edged blade as long as a katana affixed to the end.
“What’s going on?” I whispered. I blinked away cold beads of moisture that hung from my eyelashes.
The yamabushi knelt, examining something as they conversed in low muffled conspiratorial voices becoming clearer as I neared.
“He was here alright - but suspected a trap, and fled.” Yobutomo said.
“We took every care not to show our presence.”
“It’s not your fault, if I hadn’t known to look for the signs I wouldn’t have known you were there at all. No, this one is cunning.”
“With this mist he could be right here and we wouldn’t notice it.”
Yobutomo thought for a while, his eyes travelling over the grey-upon-grey surrounds. “For now, I think not. He has lost the element of surprise, and he knows he is outnumbered.”
“Will he be back?”
“No doubt, and with reinforcements to even the odds. See if you can find his trail.”
The two yamabushi exchanged glances and nodded to one another. They moved away, swallowed into the depths of the still pools of mist. Yobutomo at last acknowledged my presence and gestured for me to come closer. I dropped into a crouch beside him and saw the slightest imprint of the toe of a boot in the mud.
Yobutomo nodded to my unasked question.
“Yes, it is the assassin.”
The weakness of panic suffusing through my limbs, the woods suddenly colder, and my skin pricked at the nape of my neck as if I were being watched. Realization dawned.
“We were bait.”
Yobutomo’s brows raised and lowered in quick acquiesce to my statement.
“You lied to me,” I said, berating myself. I had known of the deception all along, only I had refused to admit it.
“I didn’t lie,” Yobutomo said. “I just didn’t tell you the whole truth.”
He stood and extended a hand down to me where I knelt in the mud. I pretended not to notice and heaved myself up unaided, my mood dark. It did not help that my whole body ached with cold and hunger.
“You aimed to trap and kill him.”
Yobutomo nodded.
“How could you? My Master is not to blame.”
Yobutomo’s tone hardened. “He stole into the temple of the yamabushi and slew one of our own. He will answer for that.”
“No, you can’t! He raised me since I was a child! He is like a…” I hesitated, the word refusing to unbind from my tongue.
“A father? Boy, have you so quickly forgotten? To us, Hatano was a brother.”
The monk with the longbow returned. “His tracks are light. It’s almost as they say in the fables, the shinobi seemed to fly from tree to tree.”
“Don’t worry, he walks with care, but is still very much human.”
“His tracks head east. Do we try the ruse again?”
“I fear we have already overplayed ourselves, it was a desperate attempt, and it failed.” Yobutomo turned to me. “Boy, that assassin is not your father and he has no love for you, do you understand that? He wants you dead.”
The anger was a sullen red, receding to the edges of my skull.
“Boy, are you listening? I am willing to aid you as best I can. I will stay true to my word, I am willing to take you to Mount Hiei.”
The scrutiny was almost too much for me to bear. The words were on the very tip of my tongue.
Take me back to the castle, I wanted to say. It would solve everything, a satisfying act of self-destruction fueled by desperation, exhaustion and not a little spite. I examined Yobutomo’s face, but whatever thoughts he held were well hidden this time, for I saw only concern in those deep lines. I forced myself to overcome my churlish mood, but kept that small piece of me hidden deep, the knowledge that every person on this earth would betray me.
“I am nothing. I put myself at your mercy and your command.” I stretched my arms forward, bent double at the waist.
Yobutomo gave a sigh. “All your life you have been a servant, boy. You must free yourself, you must decide your own course.”
“Then I will go, if you will take me.”
“We have no time to waste,” said Yobutomo. He raised one arm and guided me back to the remains of our camp. He passed something to me. A pair of lightweight sandals woven together from grass. I realized it they were what he had been industriously creating the previous evening. He sat upon the ground and removed his wooden goblin-sandals, indicating that I should do the same with my boots.
“We have to disguise our trail,” he said, strapping the sandals over his split-toe socks. “Put them on.”
Reluctantly I sat, pulling off my boots. The straw sandals were light in comparison, almost ethereal.
“They’re too big,” I said, flexing my toes through the strapping.
“Exactly,” said Yobutomo as he stood. “They are the same size as ours.”
As I got to my feet I noted with surprise that he was much shorter without the height of his goblin-sandals, and now stood only a hand or so taller than me. I started to reach for my boots but he shook his head, indicating to his discarded goblin-sandals.
“Best to leave your boots here, if the assassin were to happen on them later he would be sure of our trail,” he said. “Unless something is absolutely necessary, or can function in more than one task, do not burden yourself with it.”
“He will find us again, won’t he?”
“He won’t know which path to track, especially once our friends here create a network of false trails.” He bowed to his two companions, and they took their leave, this time without the advertising trumpeting of the conch shell, simply van
ishing into the mist like ghosts. I could not shake the feeling that this was all some strange dream.
“How far is it?” I asked.
“In in your condition, our journey will take months. Let’s keep moving, we need to put as much distance as possible between us and the assassin before nightfall. For now, you need to forget Kyoto, forget Mount Hiei; focus only on the moment.” He made a gesture to the forest and we began to walk. I struggled to keep pace with Yobutomo as he trode lightly, almost dancing, upon twisted lattice of interlocking roots.
It was with relief that we came across an overgrown trail. It snaked through the trees, tendrils of undergrowth wet with dew reaching out as if trying to snatch at my feet. Yobutomo smiled, as if sharing a secret, and I suspected this trail was known only to the yamabushi.
“Let’s run.”