Traitor's Hope

by Virginia McClain

  It wasn’t that the healers who had been working before she arrived at the camp didn’t know what they were doing, not really. They had a good general knowledge of healing, and they did the things that they understood quite well. It was that none of them had apparently ever studied the human body as thoroughly as Taka had. Strange to think that she had been taught most of what she knew from a talking tree and then had mostly practiced on animals, but between her understanding of kisō and her understanding of the human body, she was able to heal almost all of the wounds that came to them, and prevent infection as well. If a man was still breathing when they brought him to her, it was likely she would be able to save him. And she also found that she had a much deeper reservoir of kisō than any of the other healers here. She could heal more people, more rapidly, than any of the men who had thought of her as a “little girl” on the first day that she had arrived at camp.

  None of them seemed to think of her as a little girl now. The first few days had been tumultuous, certainly, but with the help of Kusuko—and she owed the young woman much—she had managed to get all of the healers in the camp to take her seriously. The same was true for most of the soldiers. It hadn’t taken long for stories of her healing prowess to turn into the stuff of legends amongst the soldiers. Soon she was greeted warmly whenever she walked across camp, recognized as the reason that many of the men and their comrades were still walking on two legs.

  Of course, once or twice she’d been greeted a little too warmly. The first time she’d rendered the man unconscious before he did anything more than make lewd suggestions. The second time, the man had one arm around her chest before she’d known what was happening, and then he’d suddenly been on the floor with a dagger pressed to his throat and Kusuko sitting on his chest. Taka still wasn’t sure if the young woman had been following her, or simply happened to be there at the right moment. She wasn’t sure she minded either way. She had nothing to hide, and she certainly appreciated having the additional protection from any of the men who got the wrong idea, even if she was livid that some men seemed to think her objections to a liaison were something they could overrule.

  She shook her head and returned to her survey of the tent. It wasn’t that it was cleaner, or better organized, although she had improved the system of triage by insisting that a healer who could use kisō to assess patients be in charge of the entry and organization. It was a combination of how few patients were left, and the hopefulness of those who remained. There was quite a bit to be said for a patient’s outlook on their own recovery, in terms of their chances of healing properly after Taka had done what she could. The mood in the healing tent seemed to have changed substantially since she had arrived, in that regard.

  And that was why she was here, even though it wasn’t her shift. She scanned the tent once more, and this time she spotted Iruka-san toward the back, talking with one of the other healers.

  Taka took another deep breath before she started toward the tall man. It wasn’t that he was still fighting her assignment to be in charge. After the first three days, and only the one intervention by Kusuko, he had accepted that she was the healer in charge. It was just that…well, there was acceptance, and there was acceptance. He seemed willing to relinquish control because all of the other healers had finally recognized her as the more experienced healer, but he did not seem to appreciate his own demotion. Every time she gave him an order, it seemed to create an internal struggle for the man.

  As she walked, she slowly let out the breath she’d taken, and reached for a calm that she did not feel.

  “Iruka-san,” she said. “Pardon the interruption. Do you have a moment?”

  The man turned to her with his habitual glare in place. She’d begun to think that it wasn’t just for her—he seemed to have a similarly sour expression when most people engaged him in conversation.

  He bowed slightly, gesturing to a corner of the tent that was currently unoccupied. She bowed and led the way.

  “What can I do for you, Taka-san?” he asked.

  His tone was perfectly polite, but there was something about his posture, gaze, and facial expression that made the question sound like a curse. It was an impressive talent, Taka thought, to sound that polite and clearly not mean it at all.

  “Starting tomorrow, I would like to begin admitting patients from the town,” she said, keeping careful watch of his facial expression. “There are people who aren’t soldiers who are either getting mixed up in the fighting, or else are simply suffering from everyday maladies, but cut off from access to healers because of the military forces to either side. They need treatment, and we’ve got enough room and time to be able to treat some of them.”

  She could see the corners of Iruka-san’s mouth turn even farther down as she spoke, an effect that was almost comical, as the man hadn’t been smiling when she started speaking anyway.

  “Absolutely not! We are needed to treat soldiers, not children with stuffy noses, or women moaning about their moontimes. It has been—”

  “I’m sorry, Iruka-san. You seem to be confused. I wasn’t asking.”

  The man’s mouth snapped shut at the interruption, and his glare deepened as she spoke.

  “Please make the arrangements so that anyone from the town who needs treatment knows where to come, and who to ask for.”

  “It’s fine if you wish to waste your time taking care of the riffraff from this town, but you cannot expect the rest of—”

  Taka was saved from having to cut the man off again by someone else doing it for her. The healer who had been stationed at the door for admittance was standing in front of both of them, looking decidedly nervous.

  “I’m sorry, Taka-san, Iruka-san, but I think this is urgent.”

  “What is it?” asked Taka, before Iruka could regain his composure.

  “It’s the latest soldiers seeking admittance,” the man said.

  “Well, what’s wrong with them?”

  “They…they say they surrender, but…well…they’re from the Rōjū zantō.”

  Kusuko stood outside the healing tent and watched the injured soldiers limp their way across the camp. She wondered how many there were in total. She wasn’t surprised that the Rōjū were providing too few healers, or perhaps just poor ones, but she’d never heard of a mass of men decamping just to receive medical treatment from their opponents. She thought it particularly strange that men who were fighting to keep women with kisō from making it into adulthood were now begging for medical treatment from precisely the kind of person that they would have drowned in the cradle. She wondered if any of the men had thought of that. Perhaps they didn’t believe the part of the stories that said that the healer they sought was a woman.

  It was that irony that made her question her father’s sanity sometimes. Mamushi-san made use of women with Kisōshi for his hishi. She wasn’t the only one. How did he reconcile the women he considered useful members of his network of spies and assassins with the abominations the Rōjū insisted all female Kisōshi must be? Of course, the Rōjū had known about his use of female Kisōshi and said nothing for cycles and cycles, so perhaps no one in power questioned that kind of hypocrisy. She wondered how many members of the now defunct Rōjū Council had female relations with enough kisō to be yukisō or senkisō who were still alive now solely because of their affiliation. Did they all live with the hypocrisy, or did some of them actually believe what they claimed to be the truth?

  She needed to avoid asking questions like that if she wished to survive her next meeting with Mamushi-san. He would never accept that kind of questioning from his subordinates, and she knew better than to think that being his daughter would offer her any protection from his wrath. It must be this hifu, she thought. This hifu has become a bit of a rebel, and far too interested in Taka and her friends.

  Yes, her hifu questioned the Rōjū and her father’s decisions, not Kusuko. The true Kusuko knew that her father was simply being practical. He would take money and information from th
e sources that offered it, in exchange for certain services. He would follow the path that served him best in his endless quest for information and influence. She should do the same. No matter what stirrings she felt when she looked at Taka across a room. No matter how her mind tried to ally her with her hifu’s feelings on the matter.

  She sighed, and the wind rustled the trees behind her, carrying a slight chill with it. It was warmer now than it had been a few tendays prior, but winter was slow to release its grip on the land here in the north. She listened to the birds singing in the trees behind her for a moment, then moved to follow the last of the men who had been shuffling through the camp into the healing tent, slipping between men and shadows, generally going unnoticed even though she was still dressed in full kimono.

  She told herself that she was here to work, simply following her assignment. After all, Taka might need her to stop someone from doing something stupid. She told herself that it was not that she would simply get a chance to watch the incredible woman work.

  Taka tried to ignore the flutter she felt in her stomach as she noticed Kusuko weaving her way through the influx of enemy soldiers who had marched their way into the tent only a moment after they had been announced by the triage healer. She was suddenly quite busy, and she didn’t have time to be distracted by beautiful assassins, or anything else.

  Where she had only moments ago been appreciating how uncrowded the healing tent had been, there were now men filing into every corner of the space. Taka wondered, if these men were all from their opponent’s side, how many men were still left to fight?

  “Does this usually happen?” she asked Iruka-san, more to distract him from the objections he seemed to be silently sputtering than because she actually thought it might be normal.

  “No,” the man said, his head still swiveling to take in all of the new patients. “The enemy does not generally surrender a large chunk of their fighting force in order to receive better medical treatment.”

  She nodded.

  “Do you think it’s a trap?” she asked.

  She was amused as she watched the man’s face pale, and his eyes widen. It appeared he hadn’t considered the option until she had mentioned it.

  “It could be,” he admitted, looking quite a bit less composed than he had only moments before.

  “Don’t worry,” she said, casually. “I saw Kusuko come in a moment ago. If they start attacking, she’ll be here to defend us.”

  She wasn’t sure if the man would find that statement more antagonistic than reassuring, given his personal history with the former assassin, but she was pleased to see that he relaxed some with that piece of information tucked away. How quickly he warms up to her now that he considers her to be on his side, she thought.

  “Do you need me?”

  Taka barely managed to avoid jumping at the sudden appearance of the young woman they had just been discussing. Her heart fluttered this time, but she thought it was just as likely to be surprise as attraction.

  “Actually,” she said, managing to keep her composure because she was supposed to be in charge, and that made it easier to remain serious, “we could use another set of hands to help with treating the minor wounds after we’ve triaged the more urgent needs. How are you with bandages?”

  Kusuko smiled.

  “I have always been excellent at tying people up,” she said.

  Taka’s first thought was that of course an assassin would be good at restraining people, but then Kusuko winked at her, the flutters returned to her stomach, and she thought that maybe Kusuko wasn’t talking about her work.

  Taka swallowed and nodded, handing Kusuko a roll of bandages.

  “Follow Oga-san, please, and start cleaning and bandaging anyone he says is low priority.”

  Kusuko nodded and walked away. Taka was both disappointed and relieved to see her go. Was that normal? To want someone to stay because they make you feel alive, but want them to leave because you can’t function normally in their presence? She shook her head, certain that she was going crazy, and needing to focus on things other than petite assassins who could stop daggers with their smiles.

  “Focus, Taka-san…focus…”

  She glanced furtively around, to be sure that no one was listening to her, but luckily Iruka-san had wandered off to speak to another healer, and everyone else was just as busy.

  She inhaled and counted to ten, exhaled to the same count, and then got down to the business of saving the lives of the enemy.

  Mishi scanned the skies above them, clear blue and lit with a gently warming sun, and was once more disappointed at the lack of any nearing black dots that might be Riyōshi. They were closer to the sanzoku than they had ever been before, that they were sure of. Yet she and Mitsu couldn’t agree on what to do next. The obvious answer was that they had to get the children to safety, but if they left now without knowing where the sanzoku had established their base of operations (if they indeed had one), then they left without doing anything to stop them from demolishing another village. If, however, they continued to stay near the village where they had found Mizu and Tsuchi, they risked being found by the sanzoku and killed.

  Mitsu argued that he should scout out the sanzoku alone and that Mishi should escort the children to the Zōkame estate. But Mishi knew that was a suicide mission, even as good as Mitsu was at tracking, and she refused to let him go alone. She had tried to insist that she should go on her own to find the sanzoku while Mitsu escorted the children to safety, but Mitsu retorted that if it was suicide for him to go alone, the same was true for her. What he lacked in ability to fight multiple opponents, she lacked in tracking and stealth. Mishi had to confess that his argument was sound, and stifle the thought that she might not mind a suicide mission. They hadn’t gotten anywhere close to a decision, when Riyōshi had joined them and offered his services as a scout. The sanzoku had evaded, or captured and killed, all scouts so far, but how many of those had been in the air?

  Mishi and Mitsu agreed, finally, that if Riyōshi was willing, they would wait while he checked the surrounding area and reported back. They would wait only as long as it took him to find them again, and if they thought the sanzoku were approaching, they would simply flee and Riyōshi would have to find them later.

  That had been three days ago.

  Each day that passed without the arrival of the temperamental red-tailed hawk increased Mishi’s creeping sense of dread. If he hadn’t arrived by midday today, she would tell Mitsu that they should leave anyway. Something about this was all wrong.

  “Do you think they somehow caught him?” Mitsu asked, from right beside her.

  She managed not to jump. She was beginning to get used to how easily he could sneak up on her; something no other human (especially one with kisō) was able to do.

  “I don’t know. How does one catch a hawk?”

  “I suppose it’s possible, but it would be difficult with even an average hawk, and Riyōshi is not an average hawk.”

  She turned, noticing that Mitsu had his pack on his back. Apparently he’d had the same feeling about things that she had. He handed her pack to her, complete with katana and wakizashi.

  “I’m tired of being tackled every time you need your sword,” Mitsu said.

  Mishi opened her mouth to object, but snapped it shut when she heard a rustle of fabric in the trees behind her.

  Without thinking, she tackled Mitsu to the ground and cried out to the children, “Run!”

  Mizu and Tsuchi, who had been practicing with balls of earth and water while Mitsu was preparing the morning meal, dashed into the trees together at once, just as an arrow whistled through the air where Mishi and Mitsu had been standing, thudding into a nearby tree.

  Mishi was up and charging at the archer, her katana already drawn from her pack, before she could see if the children had made cover, or if Mitsu would be able to follow them.

  She spotted a small glint of steel in a tree ahead of her, and she threw a wave of flame at it as she
ran. She heard the archer cry out in pain, and saw him fall from the tree.

  And then she saw more steel flashing from the tree tops, and glinting between the trees. At least thirty men. Mishi weighed her odds. She could fight quite a few men on her own, perhaps with Mitsu’s help…

  She rolled sideways, and came up running. Arrows thudded into the ground beside her, and wind and fire tore into the trees and leaves that surrounded her. She dropped again, rolled, and turned back toward camp. She could see no sign of Mitsu, Mizu, or Tsuchi. Had they been captured, or had they already made their escape? She dropped and rolled once more, turned away from everything, zigging and zagging between the trees as she ran, and kept running. At the very least she could distract some of these men. If she was lucky, perhaps she could pick off a few that followed her.

  She had to hope that Mitsu and the children were together, and had made their escape.

  8th Day, 3rd Moon, Cycle 1 of the New Council

  “YOU HAVEN’T LEARNED much that we don’t already know,” Inari-san said, from the other side of the low table laden with sake and small plates filled with everything from pickled vegetables to slices of raw fish.

  Kusuko nodded, but didn’t reply for a moment, only taking a small sip of warm sake and thinking. The small, warm room was hardly private—no room in an izakaya truly was—but it contained only the two of them, the food on the table, the smells of warm sake and cooking fires, and the sounds of quiet conversations floating through from the other rooms nearby.

  But it wasn’t the lack of privacy that kept Kusuko from wishing to tell Inari-san more of what she had learned.