Thousand Shrine Warrior

by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

  She stepped back to let Norifune stand. He was about to shout exactly the proper order, but an arrow that missed its intended target buried itself in Norifune’s kneecap, and he fell back down, howling.

  There were hunters all around her in the next moment. The hot breaths of horses made pungent clouds. The hunters watched her, using their horses to urge her away from injured Norifune. The men looked as though they were curious and uncertain.

  “Help the chamberlain,” one of them said.

  “That’s a funny deer,” someone said foolishly. “Kind of small.”

  “Just a baby. Should we kill a fawn?”

  “At once!” another answered.

  The nun cursed, “Kisama!” which meant they were all asses. “Can’t you see Priest Kuro brought you to this? His saimenjutsu mesmerising art is excellent!”

  The men were startled. One said, “A magic deer! It speaks!”

  An arrow was unleashed and her sword swept up to deflect it. The splinter in her arm hurt. Blood stained her sleeve.

  “A weird beast, but wounded,” one of them said. “Look at its reddened shoulder.”

  They were surrounding her. There was no chance of escape. Presently they raised their bows, almost as one. She could not deflect arrows on all sides.

  An unexpected wind raised flurries of powdery snow, sufficient to keep Lord Sato’s further men from finding their way quickly to reinforce the others; but it did not hinder the vision of those who surrounded her now. The panting, wild-eyed nun took her best yadome-jutsu stance, but knew it was hopeless. There was only a moment’s life left to her, she was certain, but she would try her best.

  The belling of a stag unsettled everyone. It was a surprising sound, barely natural; and the hunters turned their attention aside for the moment, thinking their prey’s mate was dashing from somewhere to save the injured, cornered doe.

  Out of the flurries charged a monstrous white buck with murderous red eyes. It charged with such ferocity that the hunters nearly forgot their original target, and unleashed arrows toward the monster instead. The buck caught the arrows in his thorny antlers, and belled again, proud of his ability.

  The nun took the opportunity to escape the circle of confused and panicked men and horses. She had run some ways before the horrendous vertigo overtook her and, her foot striking a rock unseen beneath a layer of snow, she tumbled forward, and could not muster the courage to get up. As she lay there, she looked back to where the eight hunters were shouting conflicting demands of one another.

  She saw that the source of their consternation was even more spectral than Priest Bundori’s warring stag alone. The stag had a rider! The rider was a slender youth with a ghastly, sallow complexion and a white kimono embroidered with a yellow snake. He moved with preternatural limberness as he maneuvered a Shinto ceremonial rope as a lariat.

  The lasso moved through the air like a winged serpent, grabbing men from their saddles, while at the same time the great buck ripped into the flanks of horses, his antlers a nest of knives.

  Chamberlain Norifune regained enough of his wits to limp away, toward Lord Sato and other men who were approaching. He shouted at them to come no further, declaring a ghost or monster would destroy them. The eight men fighting stag and rider were to be abandoned.

  Among those eight, one gave up quickly and rode off in fright. Another, whose horse was gored and dying, fled, even as did Norifune. The other six received lassos about their throats, clinging momentarily, long enough to jerk, to break their necks.

  The nun was no less confused than the others, but was grateful for the time required to scrabble for the cover of the trees. The recent carnage would certainly not end the hunt. The other men might well take it into their heads that they hunted both a hind and a stag, a supernatural couple who could be hunted only by night and did not exist by day. Whether this frightened them or thrilled them did not matter. They would pursue the deadly sport, no longer requiring the encouragement of Priest Kuro’s mesmerism. For they could never again call themselves hunters, let alone samurai, if they let such prey escape, and left the slain unavenged.

  Even now her plan was uncertain. She must make it through the wooded area to the river. If she could not locate so much as a long-disused bridge, dangerous and rickety, then the river would be nothing but a dead end.

  The sky had blossomed new clouds, while high winds brought others. The moon and stars were blotted out. Snow was falling anew, with increasing vigor, hampering her vision more than did the darkness or inebriation. As she loped and slid over the terrain, her lungs felt more and more expanded. She had lost all sense of direction.

  Samurai were everywhere in the woods, seeking the prey. She heard horses blowing, their hoofs kicking through the snow. She heard samurai shouting to each other, some elated by the unearthly hunt, others fearful; some were merely lost and calling for orientation. It did not seem as though Lord Sato or Norifune were still among the hunters. The chamberlain doubtless had used the excuse of the turning weather as a point to cajole Lord Sato back into the castle, either to seek instruction from Kuro the Darkness, to obtain reinforcements for the devilish hunt, or merely to hide.

  The nun was spotted. Two riders bore upon her as she ran an evasive route between close trees. The trees were too young and the underbrush too slight to provide effective cover. The two samurai did not lose her. One of them shone a beacon. The other prepared to unleash an arrow.

  The arrow missed, for the bikuni came to an abrupt halt. Her path was blocked by Priest Bundori’s albino stag. He stood snorting and pawing the snow. The stag’s rider was also red-eyed and white-haired, but not quite a true albino, having an ocher coloration. The xanthic rider’s lariat reached out once. A hunter’s cry was stifled. His lantern dashed to the snow and went out, the hunter dead beside it with his neck horribly twisted. The horse ran on riderless.

  The archer nocked a second arrow; but with the trees, the dark, and the blizzard, he was unsure of his target. As he hesitated, the lariat reached out again, snatching the longbow from his grasp. He drew his sword; but, thinking better of the uncanny situation, he wheeled his horse about and pounded a trail toward the sound of other riders.

  The stag-rider leapt onto the snow and soon stood before the nun, who was twice reprieved by the youth’s efforts. The stag remained a short distance away, standing so quietly that he was nearly invisible among the trees and snowfall.

  The youth’s sallow face was long. He was not entirely unpleasant-looking, but he was not attractive either. His looks were somehow inhuman, even aside from his lack of proper pigmentation. His red eyes were fiery gems. When a red tongue licked white teeth, that tongue was decidedly forked. He addressed the bikuni.

  “I am that serpent whose life you saved. My name is Raski. It has been my fate to follow you through many lives and serve you.”

  The bikuni recollected a fighting stallion by that name. She had ridden him into battle and he died courageously. She also recalled a valiant canine who had been awarded the death-name of Raski at his funeral. Both of those beasts were white-furred, though not albino. The bikuni had no doubt that there was such a thing as reincarnation; but she was unable, at the moment, to feel deep concern about the karma of a beast. It was only vaguely disturbing that a creature might be reborn with each life reduced to something lower than before.

  Possibly the karma of a beast would have meant more to her had she not recalled full well the one previous occasion she had seen Shinto ceremonial ropes used as Raski used them. She raised her sword against him, her threatening pose slightly spoiled due to her intoxication.

  “It was you who killed those nine men near the shrine!” she accused. “I have sworn to avenge them!”

  She dashed forward, but the youth slunk backward, looking startled and abused.

  “I am a serpent, after all!” he exclaimed. “I don’t understand your anger!”

  “Why not try to take my weapon with your rope!” she challenged. “Use my Sword
of Okio against me as you used those men’s swords to pin them to trees. A cruel way to kill!”

  The hunter who had fled without his bow was riding back, accompanied by other men. They searched through the blizzard and among the trees for sign of the prey. An unforeseen shaft struck the serpent youth square in the back. If he could have avoided it, he did not try. The arrow’s point burst out through his chest. He threw his head back as though to shout and collapse, but in a moment the look of pain passed from his face. He turned with his weird rope, sent it forth, snatching the mounted archer’s sword from its sheath. The youth caught the sword and let his rope fall coiled upon the ground.

  Turning to the nun, he said, “I have never learned human sentiment. For this reason my lives have been short, and I have descended from higher beasts to lower. I regret punishing those men in a manner you could not approve. I will do penance fighting these present samurai for you. I promise their pain will be slight. Then I will die with them, of this arrow through my heart. The stag is yours to ride across the river; he knows the proper ford. Please let me do this, for the sake of my future lives.”

  The hunters were closing swiftly. The nun could still not think clearly. She turned her mind to thoughts of Shinji and Otane suffering on the cross, and away from such a thing as the fate of humanity and beasts. She hurried to the stag and mounted. He leapt away from the circle of danger. The bikuni looked back to see the serpent youth jumping among the swirling snowflakes. As a snake from its coil, he flung himself toward a mounted samurai, piercing first the horse, to its very heart, then slicing the rider as the horse went down.

  He took another arrow from behind as he was doing this. He turned to face the next attacker, now revealing two arrows rather than one poking outward from his chest, dripping serpent’s gore.

  The strange, yellowish-white youth hissed, leapt again, and the bikuni could see no more.

  What a mad, savage ride the stag supplied! With moon and stars immured beyond roiling clouds, and the very atmosphere whirling with snow, she had to trust the stag’s senses. They sped through black woods and black night, outdistancing the one or two hunters who pursued. She did not see the river until she heard cloven hoofs splash the shallows. The river would not be swollen until spring. Though it was wide and cold and swift, the ford at least was no deeper than the stag’s belly. The nun raised her feet to keep her tabi-socks dry. The red-eyed buck ploughed the rapids. The spray invigorated, but was insufficient to sober the nun.

  In the next moment they were on a narrow, umbral path that could have led to the Land of Roots, for all the nun could judge. It was pitch dark. Naked branches were difficult to dodge as the snorting buck leapt and ran through the wild back acres of the properties of Lord Sato’s vassals.

  Only once did she become so much as slightly orientated. A samurai residence, poorly lit from within, came into view. She recognized it as Kahei Todawa’s residence, in which he remained under house arrest. Then the nun could see no more. The buck leapt onto some other path, without a moment’s slacking.

  The rider could not control the mount. She dared not try, even had she known the means; for she did not know the route. She had faith in the stag’s night vision and his knowledge of the narrow paths of beasts. But she did not suppose he comprehended where his rider wished to be taken. She could only cling to his neck and give herself over to chance and the Shinto gods.

  She might have ridden in this manner for eternity. She had no sense of time. Exhilaration gave way to jaded detachment. She let go of the stag’s neck, clung with legs alone, and began to pick carelessly at the bothersome splinter lodged in her left arm. She did not consider how the buck was unused to being straddled and might prove deadly passage.

  His jewel eyes, loathing the sun, were fine orbs for the night. He saw a fallen cedar on the path ahead, its roots a tangle of bared claws. The nun had no precognition of the barrier. He leapt fantastically, powerfully, scarcely hindered by the weight upon his back. As the nun had been worrying at the splinter, she had no expectation of the leap. Her wine slowed brain sent messages of urgency to the wrong parts of her body. Her hand went foolishly to the hilt of her sword, responding only to a general sense of emergency.

  As the stag struck the ground on the far side of the log, the nun was flung forward, nearly impaled on the antlers. The path turned sharply. The stag veered, unsettling a startled rider and leaving her upon the path.

  She lay winded, having actually managed to draw the sword full length before hitting the ground. Snow spun around her face. She stood and bumbled about like a temple-clown feigning a bump to the head, amusing the novices and visiting children. Realizing how idiotic it had been to draw steel instead of grabbing the beast’s neck for steadiness, she could only curse her state of intemperance. Sheathing her sword, she listened to the fading sound of the stag’s pounding hoofs.

  As it turned out, she was not long lost. When she stumbled from the animal paths onto a real road, she immediately saw the bridge that joined samurai estates with the peasant village. There were men posted at the bridgehouse. Pulling herself into a sober-seeming posture, she approached the guards and addressed them gruffly. She showed them Lord Sato’s sealed warrant, Sato’s signature on the outside.

  They let her pass. She crossed the bridge casually. The snowfall had gained surprising momentum. Wind stirred snow upon the ground. When she was across the bridge and certain the guards could not see her through the thickening flurries, she gave up her nonchalance and took to her heels, passing the length of the village and heading for the light of campfires in a bamboo enclosure.

  Outside the fence sat foolish Iyo and his grandmother the widow Todawa. They were still praying for the salvation of Shinji and Otane, in this life or the next. They were mainly ignored by the guards, who might hide their discomfort regarding a family’s sadness and destruction.

  The swift approach of the nun caused several men to gather at the gate of the enclosure. They had half expected a meddler, since so many guards had been posted at the execution site. They were prepared to thwart any effort to free the pitiable lovers from the cruciform.

  But the martial nun fell passively to her knees and held forth a letter with Lord Sato’s signature thereon. The chief duty guard received the letter, bowed to the seal before breaking it, unfolded the paper lengthwise before his eyes, and read it carefully. He then let go of one side of the letter and asked, “What’s this?”

  “Their release warrant!” said the bikuni.

  Widow Todawa, forever disguising the least emotion, for once let slip a startled sigh. Her moment of hope was quashed when the samurai replied,

  “I don’t think so.”

  He dropped the missive. The nun snatched it before the whistling wind carried it away. She read the words herself, snow whirling about her. Her face was suddenly drained of blood. Lord Sato had written: Save Princess Echiko. Save me.

  So his chained intellect had reached out to seek salvation from the first holy pilgrim to gain access to the castle after Priest Kuro’s arrival. But how could his plea save Otane and Shinji now? It could not. The nun was too dumbfounded to feel anger or sorrow.

  The chief vassal motioned several men to action. The old widow and her retarded grandson were kicked and shoved aside, minor abuse intended to save their lives. Steel was drawn at all quarters. The nun was still upon her knees, holding the useless missive in disbelief. When steel licked forth murderously, she rolled to one side, let the wind take the missive, drew her sword, and cut her attacker’s leg so that it came loose below the knee.

  A second samurai moved forward as the nun somersaulted backward, coming to her feet, gutting her attacker from her crouch. Then she stood—slowly. She was transformed into a frightening presence, face still ashen with disappointment, but her expression firm and resolved.

  She acted from instinct. She did not think about the deeds or the skills that came into play. Her sword angled left; it angled right. Two men fell. She pressed forward but wa
s blocked from the enclosure. Too many men had gathered there. She began to run along the perimeter of the fence, pursuers on her heels, another guard waiting for her up ahead, his spear held in readiness. She closed upon him. Her sword took him so quickly, he was dead without knowing the nature of the cut that had been his undoing. His spear lay beside him in two pieces.

  Two of her pursuers caught up. She turned, cut both of them with a single horizontal slice. Then she cut twice at the fence and pressed it with her shoulder.

  She was within.

  She ran toward a fire. The blizzard had risen with frightful intensity; she could not immediately locate the cross. She was nearly upon it before she saw Otane’s dark hair sweeping the ground, her inverted body spread-eagle on the cruciform, Shinji on the other side bound identically.

  “Otane!” the nun cried above the storm as another samurai dropped before her blade. “Shinji! Otane! Brace up!”

  The world was doubly blurred by her drunkenness combined with the heavy flurries. She leapt over a bonfire, cutting down the man on the other side, then danced awkwardly to one side, killing another. She reeled, spun, slew. Blood sprayed her face. Her costume was of cream and charcoal and crimson. The long sleeves of her kimono turned and twisted in the gale, making her seem an enormous crow flapping and slaying and hopping about.

  Her sword arced toward the cross. The rope binding Shinji’s left and Otane’s right arms fell away. Shinji tried to untie one of the other ropes with his freed hand. He was as sick and weary as Otane, and could only pick uselessly at a knot.

  Slice—a man fell.

  Slice—another rope fell from the cruciform. Shinji and Otane hung by one arm and one leg apiece, still too helpless to do anything for themselves.

  Slice—spray—death.