By the time Moon reached the ruins with Snowhawk at his side, Motto had stretched out in the shade of a low, crumbling stone wall. Nearby the White Nun sat on a curved, mossy log in the shade of a long, high hedge of black-green bamboo. She was hunched forward, head resting on her stick.
'Let them climb awhile, pass us by.' The sage gestured at scattered flat stones. 'Sit, save your strength. You may yet need it.' She looked away, smiling secretively.
Moonshadow scouted the ruins. So this was once a small castle. Whoever had destroyed it had done a very thorough job; not one wall had been left intact.
He walked to the crumbling, gap-toothed remains of the outermost wall, once the little fortress's battlements. It was perched on the edge of the plateau. Peering over, Moon caught sight of the haunted forest, almost directly below them. He shuddered.
Pacing back among the drizzled lines of rock, stands of bamboo and haphazard forest growth where the others rested, Moon sidestepped a rusty, fragmenting helmet. In it was a skull. Moonshadow shivered and looked up. The overcast green sky seemed to be darkening quickly. Was the air growing colder, or was it the scent of death that chilled his veins?
It was Snowhawk's turn to be a mind-reader. 'This is a most creepy place, even by day.' She indicated a black-and-white tangle in a patch of grass between two stones. 'There's a pile of charred bones right there.'
Moon noticed more signs of a fire-projectile attack. Broken arrows. Boulders and cut stones that were also blackened. Rusting spearheads with cubed charcoal trails behind them. There were even burnt scraps of armour, some riddled with punctures.
The White Nun covered her face with her hands. 'They have a right to be bitter, the spirits in this place.' She looked up, red eyes tearful. 'None were shown the slightest mercy. Not lord, babe nor dog.' Motto stiffened and huffed.
Snowhawk approached the sage. 'You brought us here for a reason, didn't you?'
'Clever child.' The White Nun brushed her eyes with a knuckle. 'Your kind avoids the pages of history, yet in shadow writes them. So remember this place. It was the handiwork of a certain young lord . . . named Silver Wolf.'
Moonshadow's hands balled into fists. 'He did this?'
'Oh yes. And simply to settle a personal matter. I wonder how many died, jumped or, as it ended, were pushed? All over an insult that had passed between two men.'
'But this is far from his domain,' Snowhawk looked around. 'How could he –'
'With the former Shogun's permission.' The sage shrugged. 'A legal feud. He wiped out the noble family, their castle and servants, their samurai, then, his precious honour not yet satisfied, he let his men loot the fiefdom's two villages that lie to the south. They took everything, triggering the famine, and soon the abandonments began, the very old, the very young . . .'
'That man's evil stench is everywhere.' Moon hocked and spat. 'In his honour!'
There was a loud roar of thunder overhead and seconds later, a blinding flash as lightning struck a tree thirty paces uphill from the ruins. The White Nun stood up. Motto ran to her feet. Another bolt of lightning streaked down into the forest, ten paces closer.
As the second flash's glare faded, Moonshadow squinted uphill. A maple sapling had been set on fire. Movement drew his eye. He flinched. Snowhawk grunted a curse.
Twenty strides to the left of the burning tree stood a line of figures.
'I count nine,' Snowhawk said quickly, hurrying to his side. Moon glanced at her. She had already – soundlessly – drawn her blade. He nodded grimly. No more running.
The line of figures strode forward, moving downhill in unison. One limped.
Moon studied them as they advanced. Six were definitely men, hooded, armed with back-mounted straight swords. One wore a compact shinobi bow and a quiver of arrows. None looked familiar, but all six wore matching forest camouflage suits. He recognised the two-tone maple leaf pattern at once.
No wonder Snowhawk had cursed. The design was Clan Fuma's.
The tallest, strongest looking ninja among them also wore a shuko, an iron climbing claw, over his left hand.
Always a hard combination to fight, Moonshadow thought with a frown: curved claw-blades in one hand, a shinobi sword in the other. He'd be a problem.
Moon glanced to the right of the six Fuma ninja. Jiro grinned back at him, hands already gliding into his jacket. Beside the limping gangster walked a young, beautiful woman in a kimono, fanning herself and gazing at Snowhawk with watchful intelligence.
'That's her,' Snowhawk whispered fearfully. 'Ignore the face. That's Kagero.'
At the end of the line walked a young man. His look was distinctive: make-up, fashionable hair worn long but untied, eye-catching clothes. Moonshadow had seen him before. Recently. But where? He wore only a dagger. The youth broke into a remote smile. Yes, Moonshadow nodded, now I remember you.
The market in that first town. The stranger with the bold stare.
'I am Chikuma.' The young man paced directly for Moon, who instantly felt an odd pressure building in his head. 'I come to grant your wish.'
At least now Moon knew his enemy. He set his jaw. 'And I am –'
'Moonshadow of the Grey Light.' Chikuma rubbed his hands together as he approached. 'And shortly, my thirty-fifth kill. What do you think of that?'
'I think,' Moon sneered, 'you talk too much.'
Abruptly everything went black. It had happened: he was blind. Moon felt himself freeze with terror on the spot. He heard fresh thunder, followed by the snicks of swords being drawn. Then his hearing also faded.
Snowhawk bounded up onto a rock, her head quickly turning back and forth.
Was this what it looked like? Moonshadow obviously couldn't hear her now. She called his name again, but he was unresponsive, motionless, staring off into the distance. Chikuma was the same, a mirror to Moon in stance and expression.
Were the two already battling each other in a dreamscape only they could see?
'Remember,' Snowhawk muttered as if Moon could hear her, 'like in real life.'
The White Nun hurried to Moon's side. She stamped her gnarled stick forcefully. 'Protect his body,' the sage said quickly, 'he fights his most dire battle.'
Motto sprang in front of the White Nun and Moonshadow in a menacing stance, blue eyes on the enemy ninja.
Hoisting her blade, Snowhawk pointed it at Kagero. 'I've decided to take your advice!' she shouted.
Kagero, still in youthful disguise, bowed politely. 'Why thank you. A wise decision.' The bounty hunter already held an open fan. Now she produced the other from inside her kimono, flicking it open as she drew it.
'I'll treasure your words,' Snowhawk sneered. 'The last advice you'll ever give!'
'Oh, don't be like that.' Kagero advanced on her. 'We're so much alike.' She raised the fans, adopting an angular, warlike stance. 'People always used to say I was beautiful and bad-tempered. Sounds a lot like you, neh?'
Jiro held up a bo-shuriken in each hand, edging closer with limping half-steps.
The ninja wearing a shuko as his gauntlet pointed with it. 'Don't forget: we take the girl deserter and the old woman alive.' Five suited Fuma agents quickly encircled Snowhawk's rock. Their clawed leader cast an uneasy look at Chikuma.
Like Moon, the youth remained frozen, face blank, eyes perhaps watching events taking place in some other world. The White Nun stood at Moonshadow's side, clutching her stick with her head down, as if praying. Snowhawk briefly considered trying to launch an attack on Chikuma, but decided the risk to Moon was simply too great. The Fuma agents would close in, try to stop her. In the process, Moon would either be wounded by them or jolted out of the dream – blind.
The head ninja turned back, flicking his head at Kagero as if requesting orders.
Kagero pointed at Snowhawk with a fan. 'Go ahead, gentlemen. Wear her down first, then I'll take over.' Her mouth warped into a spiteful smirk. 'It's really my responsibility to get her home alive, but if she won't submit, barely alive is also fine.' She let out
a soft chuckle. 'And once we're there, I have so many questions for you, my dear, on behalf of our former clan's leadership! You'll talk to Kagero about your new friends, won't you?' She laughed again, this time with unconcealed malice. 'Submit! You have no choice!'
They all flinched as lightning struck a patch of weeds near the ruin. A puff of smoke rose from the charred circle it left.
'Submit?' Snowhawk gave a menacing laugh of her own. She felt her eyes glaze over with wrath. 'Here's what I say to that, Kagero. I think it a most appropriate answer.'
Snowhawk flung her sword point-first at the ground alongside her rock. As it dug in, she dropped to one knee, wrists crossing as her hands flashed into her jacket. Darting back out, her right hand whip-cracked in the air.
Almost instantly a cloud of smoke plumed at Kagero's feet. Snowhawk's left hand reappeared and whipped forward. A curve-bladed Fuma shuriken whirred through the smokescreen. As the teeming white cloak enveloped Kagero, she gave a loud shriek.
Snatching up the sword, Snowhawk back-flipped off the rock. One of Jiro's black bo-shuriken streaked past her. She landed on balance in time to see the head ninja signalling.
Three of his camouflaged agents ran for the White Nun and Moonshadow.
Motto bolted forward and threw himself at the closest one, rearing up and ramming chest to chest, big paws swiping inwards to trap the man's arms. The other two agents leapt clear as Motto drove their companion into the ground. Swords ready, they advanced on Moon and the White Nun. The sage raised a trembling hand, then made it a fist.
The pair of ninja stopped walking and turned to glare at one another. Both went into defensive stances.
'Who are you?' one shouted. 'What treachery is this?'
'Who am I? You're the infiltrator!' his agitated comrade snapped back.
There was a bright flash of steel between them, the ring of impact as one cut and the other blocked. Hand guards locking together, they began to shove each other back and forth. Behind them, Motto released the ninja he had downed, springing away as the obviously shaken man fumbled drawing his sword. His camouflage suit was torn and he moved as if the dog had badly bruised him head to foot.
Jiro ran around them all, his second bo-shuriken raised, targeting Snowhawk as she scrambled backwards between two piles of crumbling wall stones.
Snowhawk watched her smoke bomb's cloud disperse. Kagero still stood in what had been its centre. Teeth set, she pulled a shuriken from her shoulder. A Fuma shuriken, Snowhawk thought, and smiled. The wound bled fast, staining Kagero's flower-patterned kimono.
The bounty hunter's face shifted, her true appearance breaking through the shinobi illusion. An older, sharply lined countenance locked fiery eyes on Snowhawk.
'Before I am done with you, little squirrel,' Kagero growled, 'you will beg Lord Hachiman for death!'
I must lead them away, thought Snowhawk to herself. Lead them away from Moon so he has a fighting chance against Chikuma. As long as they don't take me alive, I don't care what happens. Grimly, she half-smiled. A simple enough plan. Make the rest of this wolf pack give chase and draw them off the White Nun, too.
She cupped three Fuma shurikens from her holsters, then threw each hard and fast.
The first flew at the claw-handed head ninja who was trying to pacify the two the White Nun had tricked into fighting each other. Missing its mark, the shuriken struck one of the confused fighters in the neck. The ninja shouted in alarm, then crumpled. The man he'd been struggling with flinched, suddenly recognising his leader. The White Nun's influence over them had run its course.
Snowhawk took a pace backwards. Even with one down, the odds remained nasty.
She lobbed the second shuriken at Jiro, forcing him to duck, and shearing off a matted lock of hair near the crown of his head. He straightened up and swore at her.
The third shuriken she thrust at Kagero but the experienced agent, despite her wound, was ready this time and she blocked it with one of her war fans. With a clunk and a flash of iron spokes the throwing star wheeled to the leaf-strewn ground.
Kagero stared at the shuriken she had pulled from her flesh, then looked up. 'You are GLO now, yet use Fuma designed shurikens to battle us?' Her face swam with barely controlled rage. 'I am a professional. You just made this personal. Get her!'
Spinning about, Snowhawk broke into a hard run, her eyes on the area uphill where the lightning struck most often. Hard footfall pounded the ground behind her as she dashed between two gently swaying stands of bamboo and onto open ground.
Be careful what you start, Snowhawk told herself.
She hurdled a log, sidestepped a rain-cut trench and glanced over one shoulder.
The fallen ninja lay curled up, staunching his fast-bleeding neck wound.
But apart from him and Chikuma, every other enemy was now right behind her.
Silver Wolf awoke with a start and propped himself up on one elbow.
He had told his men he was going into his bedchamber to sit and meditate, but he suspected that at least his sharpest guards, the father and son bodyguard team, knew the real reason. He had, yet again, drunk too much sake with his early lunch and had needed to sleep off the dull ache steadily growing in his head.
On entering this, the innermost room of his castle's keep, he had hung a simple, ink-brushed portrait on the wall, one that had been relayed to him on Katsu's orders through a chain of agents in the field. Then, sagging backwards onto his futon, he had fallen asleep at once. He was unsure for how long, but it was still daylight outside.
Now, though awake for only a matter of seconds, he felt oddly free of any effects of liquor, and strangely alert. He found his eyes drawn to the rectangle of handmade paper dangling below the wall lamp's iron bracket.
The warlord stood up and stared at it with a dark, sullen expression. The crude portrait showed a long-faced youth with an ample head of dark hair, tied back in a single tail. The boy's eyes were sharp, purposeful, his nose long, lips thin, chin pointy and face free of scars.
'I have never seen you,' Silver Wolf muttered, his chest immediately heaving with anger, 'but now I know you, Moonshadow of the Grey Light. Do you still live?' He glanced at the diffused glow coming through the oiled paper squares of the sliding screen. 'Or have my allies done their job by now . . .' his voice built into a roar, 'and taken your stinking little head?!'
Silver Wolf dropped to one knee, one hand burrowing between the futon and the tatami beneath it. He sprang back to his feet and his arm streaked forward, fingers aligned, pointing at the picture. Polished steel caught the light as it whirled through the air. A low thud followed. Silver Wolf blinked at the picture, then flashed a maniacal grin. His small samurai-style throwing knife, made from the same folded steel as his swords, stuck from the picture's grim face, right between Moonshadow's eyes.
'Yes!' Silver Wolf's stare narrowed with sustained rage. 'A good start but not enough!' He twisted to the sword rack at the head of his bed, snatched up his long sword and drew it from the scabbard. Hurling the scabbard to his futon, Silver Wolf rushed the picture, hakama trousers rustling as he sped across the room. He swung a blindingly fast cut downwards at the face, stopping his whispering blade's tip a finger's width short of the paper.
The sliding door to his bedchamber flew open. His father and son bodyguard team appeared around it, faces wary, hands ready on their undrawn swords. They glanced around the room, frowned, then stared at the warlord with baffled expressions.
After studying his master's incensed face and drawn blade, the older samurai waved his son away and bowed low. A shrewd light came on in his eyes.
'Forgive the intrusion, my lord. We were overcautious; we did not intend to disturb your practice.'
'Get out!' Silver Wolf stood, hands and sword trembling with fury, his unblinking eyes on the samurai as he bowed again and closed the door.
The warlord looked back at the picture. His eyebrows fell and mouth twisted as he drove the tip of his blade through Moonshadow's cheek and in
to the wood behind it.
FOURTEEN
Of two battlefields
Moonshadow felt his body start to relax as the silent blackness thinned.
At first he made out only shifting shadows, heard just one sound, a distant owl's call. Then abruptly he found that he could see and hear properly again.
But not, he realised at once, the sights and sounds of his actual life.
He looked around, turning a slow, wary circle. Was he simply turning inside the dream? Or did his body rotate now, out in the real world?
This had to be a dream, a daylight mind attack, forced upon him by Chikuma.
How else could he abruptly find himself alone in the ruins, and under stars?
The night air was cold. The sky through the trees starry and still, with no signs of thunder or lightning. Far up the mountain, a wolf howled, then its whole pack joined in.
Moonshadow paced through the ruins, looking around. Yes, he was alone. An urge came to him. A prompt to go to that wall on the edge of the plateau, to look over as he had before.
'No,' Moonshadow said instinctively, 'I won't.' The urge repeated, more insistent now. He steeled himself against it and felt its strength quickly halve. Then it was gone.
'Well,' he said to himself, 'that wasn't so bad.'
Twigs snapped at the other end of the ruins. Muffled footfall, then a thump. He turned fast, eyes hunting for the source of the noises. Louder snapping, closer. Moon gripped the jacket directly over his heart.
An awful, now-familiar feeling spiralled through him, growing stronger with each passing moment. It made his breathing accelerate, his stomach knot.
Something genuinely terrible was approaching. He had no idea how he knew, but he was utterly certain of it. He stepped up onto a cracked boulder, peering through the stunted trees and scattered rocks in the ruins. There, staying in shadow: a figure. Female?
It was weaving towards him in the dark, approaching with skittish, disturbing bounds and lunges. Every movement was too fast, too sharp, impossible, yet on it came. Moon swallowed. It couldn't be human. Not even a shinobi could move that way.
The Wrath of Silver Wolf Page 14