by Hearn, Lian
He must have been stunned by the fall, for when he was able to extricate himself from the horse’s body, he was aware that the sun had moved to the west and was beginning to sink behind the mountains. The main thrust of the battle had passed over him like a typhoon and retreated; the small valley where Karasu’s body dammed the stream was deserted, apart from the dead who lay in strange heaps, Otori and Tohan together, in ever-increasing numbers toward the plain.
We are defeated. The ache of misery, rage, and grief for the fallen was too vast to contemplate for more than a moment. He set his mind now on death, welcoming the release it would bring him. In the distance he thought he could see Tohan warriors walking among the dead, severing heads to line them up for Sadamu’s inspection. He will have mine too, Shigeru thought, a brash of rage and hatred washing through his belly, but I must not let myself be captured. He remembered his father’s words: his father must be dead, and Jato was lost. He would cut himself open, the only way to assuage his pain, for no physical suffering could be greater than what he felt now.
He walked a little way up the stream and came to the spring itself, welling coolly from a gap in the black rocks. Ferns and bellflowers grew around it, the white flowers startling in the last of the light. In the rocks above the spring was a small shrine built from boulders and roofed with a single flat stone; another flat stone served as a sill for offerings. He took off his helmet and realized he was bleeding heavily from the scalp. He knelt by the spring and drank deeply, then washed his head, face, and hands. He placed his sword on the sill of the shrine, prayed briefly to the god of the mountain, spoke the name of the Enlightened One, and took his knife from his belt. He loosened his armor and knelt on the grass, opened the pouch that hung at his waist, and took out a small flask of perfume with which to scent his hair and beard, to honor his head when it was displayed to the gaze of Iida Sadamu.
“Lord Shigeru!” Someone was calling his name.
Shigeru had already embarked on his journey toward death and did not take any notice. He knew the voice but did not bother placing it; no one among the living had any hold on him now.
“Lord Shigeru!”
He looked up and saw Irie Masahide limping up the stream toward him. Irie’s face was greenish-white; he clasped his side where the armor had been hacked away.
He has brought me Jato! Shigeru thought with profound sorrow, for he no longer wanted to live.
Irie spoke in gasps. “Your father is dead. It is a complete defeat. Noguchi betrayed us.”
“And my father’s sword?”
“It disappeared when he fell.”
“Then I can kill myself,” Shigeru said with relief.
“Let me assist you,” Irie said. “Where is your sword? Mine is shattered.”
“I placed it on the shrine. Be quick—I fear capture above everything.”
But as Irie reached out to pick up the sword, his legs buckled and he pitched forward. Shigeru caught the older man as he fell and saw that he was dying. The blow that had cut his armor had gone deep into the stomach area. Only the lacing of the armor had held him together.
“Forgive me,” Irie gasped. “Even I have failed you.” Blood gushed from his mouth. His face contorted and his body arched briefly. Then life fled from his eyes, and his limbs relaxed into the long sleep of death.
Shigeru was moved deeply by the determination of his old teacher and friend to seek him out in the agony of his last moments, but the incident only reinforced the utterness of the defeat, and his aloneness now. Jato was gone; it was confirmed. He washed Irie’s face and closed his eyes, but before he could kneel and take up his knife again, a shimmer at the corner of his eye made him turn, grasping for the knife, uncertain whether to plunge it immediately into his own belly or to deal first with this new threat. He was achingly tired: he did not want to fight, to dredge up from somewhere the energy to live; he wanted to die, but he would not let himself be captured.
“Lord Otori.” Another voice from the past that he could not place. The fading evening light seemed to fracture in a way that was vaguely familiar to his desperate mind. A fragment of memory from a different lifetime, a different light made greenish by the forest and the falling rain . . .
The fox spirit stood before him, holding Jato. The same pale, mobile face; the unremarkable, slight stature; the black opaque eyes that took in everything.
“Lord Otori!”
The man who had said he was called the Fox held out the sword in both hands, taking care to use the lightest touch, for any pressure on the blade would immediately slit the skin. Its scabbard was lost, but the bronze and pearl settings gleamed in the hilt. Shigeru took it with reluctant reverence, bowed to his benefactor, and felt the sword’s power as it settled into his hand.
Life, full of unbearable pain and impossible demands, came rushing toward him.
Don’t kill yourself. Was it the man’s voice or his dead father’s or the sword’s? Live and get revenge!
He felt his face change as his lips parted. His eyes filled with tears and he smiled.
He took Irie’s empty scabbard from the warrior’s belt and slid Jato’s blade into it. Then he took his old sword from the shrine and held it out to the Fox.
“Will you take this in exchange?”
“I am not a warrior. I have no use for a sword.”
“You have the courage of a warrior,” Shigeru replied, “and the Otori clan, if any survive, are forever indebted to you.”
“Let’s get out of here,” the other replied, smiling slightly, as if Shigeru’s words had somehow pleased him. “Take off your armor and leave it here.”
“You probably think I should take my own life,” Shigeru said, as he complied. “I wish I had, still wish I could. But my father’s last command to me was to live—if Jato, his sword, came to me.”
“I don’t care one way or the other. I don’t know why I’m helping you. Believe me, it’s not my customary practice. Come on, follow me.”
The Fox had put Shigeru’s sword back on the flat rock, but as they turned toward the mountain, shouts and the padding of feet came from below and a small band of men burst upon the scene, the triple oak leaf clearly visible on their surcoats.
“I might need this after all,” the Fox muttered, as he seized the sword and drew it from the scabbard. At the same time, Jato came to life in Shigeru’s hand. He had held the sword before, but this was the first time he had fought with it. He felt a flash of recognition.
They had the advantage of the slope, but neither of them had any protection, and the Tohan men were in full armor, three carrying swords and two spears with curved blades. Shigeru felt his energy return, as if Jato itself had infused new life into him. He parried the closest man’s sword thrust and with snakelike speed stepped sideways and let the man stumble past him; Jato hissed back through the air and slid beneath the helmet into the back of the neck, severing the spinal cord. A spear thrust followed from below, but the Fox had gone invisible and now reappeared behind the warrior, slashing with the long sword, cutting the man from shoulder to hip. The spear fell uselessly to the ground.
The Tohan men might have guessed whom they were fighting and their hopes of a huge reward spurred them on, but after the first two men died so quickly, the second spearsman retreated backward down the hill, clearly preferring not to be killed now that the battle was over. However, he was shouting for help. At any moment, Shigeru knew, others would come pouring up the slope: if he was to avoid capture now, he must kill the remaining men and flee immediately, but he knew he was tiring as he was fighting them both at the same time, Jato moving through the air like a striking adder. He thought the Fox had abandoned him; then he realized the man was fighting at his side—and had been joined by a third, curiously similar in appearance. In the moment when their opponents were distracted, the Fox caught one man’s sword arm with a return stroke, taking it off at the shoulder. Jato found the other’s throat and cut deep into the jugular.
“Ha!” the
Fox said with some satisfaction, looking at the bodies and then at the sword blade before returning it to its scabbard. “It’s a good weapon. Maybe I’ll keep it after all.”
“You have earned it twice . . .” Shigeru began, but the other man cut him off.
“You have a fine way of putting things, Lord Otori, but with all respect, there’s no time for that now. You must know the entire Tohan army is looking for you. Sadamu has offered rewards for every Otori head, and the biggest one of all is for yours. I found you first and I’m not going to let anyone else get you.”
“You did not give me my father’s sword in order to hand us both over to Sadamu?”
“No, if I wanted to kill you, I’d have done it by now, before you even realized it. I’m trying to help you.”
“Why?”
“I think we might discuss that later, when we get to wherever it is you want to go.”
“It seems I am to live,” Shigeru said, glancing briefly back toward the place he had thought would be his death scene. “In which case, I must return to Hagi as soon as possible and save what I can of the clan and the Middle Country.”
“Then we will go to Hagi,” the Fox said and began walking swiftly up the slope into the darkness of the forest.
The last sounds of the battlefield faded as the forest deepened around them. It was almost completely dark and the first stars had appeared: the Great Bear low in the northeast corner like an omen of evil to come. A vixen screamed, making the back of Shigeru’s neck tingle. He remembered how he had followed this man before, when he had been just a boy, before he had killed even a single man, when his whole future had seemed full of hope. Then his world had been knocked out of kilter—by the collision with a supernatural reality. Now his world was again reeling—he did not know if it was within his power to steady it or if it would tilt and fall, hurtling him and everything that had any meaning for him into oblivion.
The vixen screamed again. She would be hunting to feed her young at this time of year—an undreamed-of feast awaited her on the plain below. He shuddered, thinking of the scenes dawn would bring, the crows feeding on the dead.
31
They walked most of that night, climbing all the time, through the wild mountain country that lay to the west of Yaegahara. For much of the time, Shigeru walked in a daze, his head wound aching, mind and body almost beyond exhaustion, one moment regretting bitterly the actions that had led to this disaster, the next inveighing against those who had turned against him and bidding farewell to the dead who walked beside him. Scenes from the battle, devoid of any meaning, passed before his eyes. Who of his army was left alive? Would any return to the Middle Country?
They stopped to rest briefly at the top of the pass. It was so cold that swaths of snow still lay unmelted across the black rock of the mountain, gleaming ghostly white in the predawn light; yet Shigeru did not feel it. He fell into a light feverish sleep and woke sweating, bands of dread tightening across his chest.
The Fox leaned over him. It was day, the first rays of the sun touching the peaks around them, turning the snow gold and pink.
“We must move on.” A flicker of concern crossed his face. “You’re burning. Can you walk?”
“Of course.” Shigeru got to his feet, swaying slightly as the blood rushed from his head. The cut was throbbing. He went to the snow and scooped up handfuls, rubbing them over his scalp and neck, wincing as he scraped the surface of the wound, then cramming clean snow into his parched mouth. He took several deep breaths in one of the exercises he had been taught at Terayama, gazing out across the unbroken green of the forest below.
“Let’s go.”
The Fox led the way, and they clambered across boulders and began the descent. It was hardly a path that they followed, more a fox track. Often they went on all fours through dense undergrowth, as if tunneling through the earth. From time to time the Fox turned back, as though suggesting they should rest, but each time Shigeru indicated that they should press on.
He did not remember much about the journey, the alternations of fever and shivering, the throb in head and ache in lungs, compounded after the second day by bruised and cut feet and constant thirst. At the foot of the first range was a small valley, cultivated with rice fields and vegetable gardens. It took only half a day to cross it, and on the way a farmer gave them some early greens and carrot thinnings. He seemed to know the Fox, as did the other peasants working in the fields, but Shigeru had never been into this valley before, had not even known it existed, and in the hollow-eyed fugitive they certainly did not recognize the heir—now the head—of the clan. At its farther side he could see another range of mountains, steeper and higher than the one they had just crossed, and behind it another. He forced himself not to think about the next ascent and the one after but to concentrate on walking, one foot after the other, keeping on only through the strength of his will.
They ate as they walked: the food brought the saliva back into his mouth and he began to feel a little better. Sometime after midday they began to climb again. The fields around them were terraced steeply, tiny patches of earth cut out from the stony ground. The sun vanished early behind the mountains; they came quickly into the deep shade of the east-facing slope. Shigeru looked back briefly at the far side, which was still bathed in light and warmth. Between the bamboo groves and the cultivated fields there was no sign of any buildings: he wondered why the villagers had not built dwellings on that slope to take advantage of the longer hours of sunlight—some ancient tradition or superstition, no doubt.
They climbed a little farther and rounded a rocky outcrop; at that moment he realized the inhabitants of this valley had priorities other than afternoon warmth. Between the rocks and the cliff face, a massive log gate had been erected; it stood open now, but once closed, it would seal off the hamlet inside. They passed through the entrance, the Fox greeting the guards who sat beside it—powerful young men who looked more like warriors than farmers—and Shigeru found himself in what might have been a village, except that there were no wooden dwellings. The cliff here had been hollowed out, and these villagers lived in caves. There seemed to be ten or so, each with wooden doors and shutters, which all stood open on this mild afternoon of early summer; there was even a shrine, recognizable by its vermilion bird-perch-shaped gate. Women sat outside, preparing food, washing vegetables in the spring water that had been channeled into cisterns. The Fox went to one of these and brought water back in a bamboo dipper. Shigeru rinsed his mouth and hands, and then drank deeply. The water was cool and soft from the limestone.
“What is this place?”
“Somewhere you can hide and rest for a few days.”
“I have no intention of resting,” Shigeru said. “I must get to Hagi as soon as possible.”
“Well, we’ll talk about that later. Come inside. We’ll have something to eat and then sleep for a while.” The Fox saw Shigeru’s impatient expression and laughed. “You may not need to rest, but I do!”
In fact, he showed no sign of fatigue, and Shigeru was sure the man could go for another week without sleep if he had to. He realized the fever was subsiding momentarily: he was thinking more clearly. He wondered if he was now a prisoner, if he would be allowed to walk out past the guards or if he would be held here until Sadamu’s men came for him: presumably the Tribe would demand a huge payment in return—for he had fallen into the hands of the Tribe: he had no doubt about that. The Fox was no spirit but a man with the astonishing abilities of the Tribe that his father had described to him.
He was both appalled and fascinated: ever since the conversation with his father, when he had learned of the existence of his older brother, he had kept in the back of his mind the idea that one day he would find out more about the Tribe and about his father’s lost son. There seemed something preordained about this meeting: the man had even brought Jato to him. He glanced at the Fox—surely it could not be him?
A woman came from the dark interior of the cave and greeted them fam
iliarly on the threshold.
“What brings you here, Kenji?”
“Just escorting my companion home.” He did not mention who his companion was.