Traitor's Hope

by Virginia McClain

  It almost worked. She had just cut down the sanzoku closest to her, giving herself enough space to raise a wall of fire in front of her remaining three opponents, and turn toward the edge of the camp, when another three men came running toward her from the perimeter, cutting off her only route of escape. She flung a wall of flame in front of them and took off running between two tents, but she was no longer running toward the perimeter. Now it was only a matter of time before she was trapped.

  Taka almost tripped over the two children lying in the mud next to a small pond, but thankfully she sensed their kisō before she could step on them. As she realized what they were, she was torn between staying to see if they were injured and in need of help, or running onward to the camp that she could now just make out in the distance.

  “Taka-san?” a familiar voice asked, followed by a familiar scruffy, green eyed face.

  “Mitsu-san!” she cried softly, as she ran forward to throw her arms around his neck. “You’re all right?”

  Mitsu nodded, though his face looked troubled. Was he not pleased to see her?

  “What’s wrong?” she asked, even while her gut tightened with fear as she noticed what was missing. “Where is Mishi-san?”

  Mitsu’s eyes darkened, but his answer wasn’t as dire as she’d feared.

  “In the camp, distracting the sanzoku so that we could make our escape.”

  She took a deep breath, thinking about what that would mean.

  “We should wait for the others, then,” she said after a moment.

  “Others?” Mitsu asked.

  “Kusuko-san and…an older man. I’m not sure who he is. I think he might be a hishi.”

  They both turned to look at the sky when they heard the piercing cry of a red-tailed hawk, and Riyōshi swooped to land on Taka’s outstretched arm.

  Kusuko had lost sight of the hawk, but it didn’t matter at this point. She could see the vague shape of a military camp in the distance, even through the trees, and she followed the trail of bent and broken branches that Taka had left behind. The young healer must have been getting tired by this point, since she had gotten careless about leaving a trail that could be followed. Or maybe she had done it on purpose, in order to let Kusuko and Inari know where to follow. Either way, Kusuko no longer needed the distant dot of the bird in the sky to tell her which way to go.

  “I wonder what trouble they’ll have found by the time we reach them,” Inari said, from just behind her.

  She was truly impressed with the man’s ability to run. She wasn’t sure how old Inari-san was, but she suspected he was around the same age as her father. That was far from old, at least as she judged it, but he wasn’t a young man either. The fact that he was still with her, and had breath to speak, was truly impressive, especially since she had been under the impression that the man preferred assignments that included copious food and sake, and little or no running. Clearly, he had hidden depths.

  “No doubt they’re doing their best to be killed by the sanzoku,” she replied drily. It wasn’t that she thought Taka and her friends were reckless, it was just that she knew their objectives ran contrary to those of the sanzoku, who appeared to need little reason to kill anyone they found in opposition to their schemes.

  She ran on, with Inari close behind.

  She wondered, then, how things would turn out with Inari present. She would have to be careful in how she presented herself to the man who was Mamushi-san’s favored spy—second only to herself—though perhaps not that anymore. After all, Mamushi-san had sent Inari to keep an eye on her, so perhaps he trusted the man more than he trusted her. Would Inari insist on pushing Taka-san and the others into the arms of the sanzoku? Would he be willing to help extricate them from their current predicament, only to trap them again later on?

  She considered whether it would be in her best interest to turn around, slip a poisoned dagger into the man’s ribs, and leave him here in the forest. But it would be too easy for someone to connect his last known whereabouts to her and report it back to Mamushi-san. She didn’t think he would like the idea that she had killed his favorite spy, even if she made up some story about him turning against her…. No, it wasn’t worth it. Besides, she thought that Inari-san might be useful to her yet. The man seemed…flexible. Perhaps he would be open to helping her prevent Taka-san’s death if it were presented in the right light.

  By the time they reached Taka-san, she was with Mitsu, the red-tailed hawk, and two tiny, mud covered children.

  They made an almost comic tableau, but Kusuko didn’t take the time to appreciate it.

  “Where is Mishi-san?” she asked.

  Taka and Mitsu looked grim.

  “Still within the camp,” Mitsu said.

  “Is she alive?” Kusuko asked.

  Mitsu nodded.

  “She was when I left, and…” he gestured toward the camp, which was visible at a distance through the trees.

  Kusuko took a good look and saw that new plumes of smoke were sprouting up here and there around the closest edge of the camp. Either Mishi-san was still alive, or else someone was randomly setting fire to tents as the day wore on.

  “How long has she been fighting?” she asked.

  Mitsu frowned.

  “Too long,” he said.

  Kusuko nodded in understanding.

  “Who is that?” asked Mitsu, jutting his chin in Inari-san’s direction.

  “This is Inari-san,” she said. “An associate of mine.”

  “Your servant,” Inari said, bowing a polite distance.

  Mitsu merely inclined his head, making his distrust quite apparent. Kusuko couldn’t blame him, really, but she didn’t need him worrying about that right now.

  “What is our plan?” she asked.

  “We don’t have one,” Taka replied, matter-of-factly.

  “We need a distraction,” said Mitsu, “something that will give her a chance to escape.”

  Kusuko thought about that for a moment.

  “Mishi-san is a fire kisō, yes?”

  Mitsu and Taka both agreed.

  “Then I believe I have an idea.”

  Mishi’s katana felt like more like a blacksmith’s hammer than the fine steel weapon it was, and her legs felt like boiled seaweed. Each block and strike took more out of her, and she didn’t think she had long before the three men who had her pinned between two tents would overwhelm her. She had been lighting fires all over the camp as she was chased, hoping to cause enough damage to distract a large portion of the fighting force that was trying to capture her. It had worked for a time, but there was almost no wind, and the fires were easily controlled and weren’t spreading.

  She parried a blow from one attacker, but barely had the strength to fend off the next man’s slash, so she wound up taking part of the hit to her right arm. She felt blood drip down her sleeve as she barely managed to deflect the next attack.

  She had let herself be cornered, in the end, because that at least limited the number of attackers who could come at her at one time. There was barely space for the three men who came at her now, and they had to alternate stepping forward to strike her, so she had exchanged having no place left to run for being able to fight her enemies one at a time.

  But she knew she could not hold. She had been fighting for too long. She wasn’t sure how long it had been since Mitsu had escaped with the children, but she had already been fighting far longer than she’d ever fought before, except during Kuma-sensei’s most grueling training days.

  She reached for her fire, and felt that she was pulling at the ends of her kisō. If she wasn’t careful, she would pull beyond what she had, and the drain would kill her.

  Ah well, if she was going to die anyway…

  Mishi gathered herself for one last spectacular display of fire. She wasn’t sure if it would kill her, or simply leave her unconscious, since she couldn’t be exactly sure how drained she had to be to get one result rather than the other, but the men who attacked her weren’t
likely to leave her alive either way, she thought, so best to go out with as large a display as possible. If it took a few of these men with her, so much the better.

  It was strange, here at the end of everything, given the number of times she had considered herself unworthy of life over the past few moons, how angry she felt to have the chance at life taken from her. It wasn’t that she feared death; she simply wished to live. Now, in the final moment before death would take her, she violently, deeply, wanted to live. She thought of the laughter she had shared with Taka, Ami, Sachi, Kuma-sensei, Tenshi. The times that Katagi had kissed her, the times that Mitsu had. The wonder she felt staring at the night sky, and listening to Tatsu explain the stars. The exhilaration of battle, of pitting her skills against those of another. She didn’t embrace the killing, but she did relish the challenge. She was going to lose all of it, and the thought both angered and saddened her. She pushed the thought aside, embraced the anger, and allowed it to help fuel the kisō she was about to draw on.

  One deep breath in—even while she somehow mustered energy she no longer felt she had to parry another strike—she gathered her remaining kisō and…

  A giant ball of fire, the size of which Mishi had never seen before, consumed several nearby tents. Mishi almost looked down at her hands in shock, as all three of her enemies turned to stare at the spectacle. She hadn’t released any fire, let alone enough to take out that many tents at once. But she didn’t let the surprise distract her from a much-needed opportunity. With a surge of energy she had never expected to feel again, she ran through the closest man to her, pushed the one beside him into the third as hard as she could, and then slipped past the stumbling trio as they tried to regain their footing.

  She didn’t stop to wonder how the fire was spreading so rapidly from tent to tent, or how it had managed to encompass so many tents at once, she simply ran as fast she could for the edge of camp, blissfully unheeded by the men who were running pell-mell to try to squelch the fire that threatened to encompass their entire camp, with all of its stores, weapons, and horses.

  She would have laughed, but she didn’t have the energy. Running was all she could do.

  Taka stood at the edge of the camp, watching the fireball that Kusuko and Inari had let loose on the sanzoku and hoping that it would be enough to help Mishi escape. She marveled at what the two Kisōshi were able to accomplish together. The fire that they sent roaring through the camp was larger and more vicious than any flame she’d seen Mishi control. Kusuko’s fire, fanned by Inari’s wind, ate through the tents as though they were kindling. It had helped, Taka supposed, that they had started with the tent that held all the food stores, as well as the sake. The rice wine seemed to be adding fuel to the inferno, and the men in the camp couldn’t haul water fast enough to make even the smallest dent in the blaze.

  She was so focused on the fire, and all it consumed, that she barely noticed the figure running into the woods just south of her. When she finally registered the movement, her legs took off without her mind even registering the command. Mishi was over a hundred tatami lengths away, but Taka felt as though she covered the distance in no time at all. One moment, she was seeing Mishi run from the camp, and the next, she stood before her lifelong friend.

  Mishi smiled when she saw her.

  “Taka-chan,” she said, her mouth a grin that showed all of her teeth.

  Then she collapsed.

  Taka cried out and leapt forward to catch her friend, but just barely managed to keep Mishi’s head from hitting a root as her body slammed into the forest floor. Fear gripped Taka’s stomach like a vise, but moments after she sent her kisō pushing into her friend’s body to assess the damage, she started to breathe easier.

  She jumped, almost dropping Mishi’s head from her lap, when a deep, breathless voice directly behind her asked, “Is she all right?”

  Taka swallowed the shout she wanted to direct at Mitsu for startling her so, but the concern in his voice gentled her reply.

  “She’s fine. She’s exhausted, and she’s lost a bit of blood, but it’s nothing a bit of rest and a bandage won’t cure.”

  “Thank all the kami,” said Mitsu. And then he truly shocked Taka by wrapping her in a very firm hug. “Thank you for coming after us, and bringing those two hishi with you.”

  Taka laughed then, though she wasn’t sure if it was from Mitsu’s statement or simply from the release of tension now that she knew Mishi was safe.

  “It would have been more difficult to leave them behind,” she said.

  Mitsu released her and looked around the forest.

  “We can’t stay here. Once they get that fire under control, they’ll remember us. And they may have scouts out looking for us already.”

  Taka agreed, so she helped Mitsu hoist Mishi onto his back. Taka was the better runner, but she was too short to carry Mishi’s tall form for very long without allowing her legs to drag. Mitsu was at least as tall as Mishi, so he was able to carry her by wrapping her legs about his waist, as Taka secured her arms in front of him using the belt that carried her small hunting knife and pouch.

  By the time they had her secured, Kusuko and Inari had found them, bringing along Mizu and Tsuchi, still covered head to toe in thick mud. Taka had already forgotten about the two small humans that she had briefly seen when she had first come upon Mitsu in the forest, but she remembered them now as they appeared with the two hishi, and wondered, for the first time, where they had come from.

  She supposed they would have time to discuss everything that had happened over the past tendays once they had safely made camp for the night.

  “Can the children run?” she asked.

  Mitsu looked at the two five-cycle-olds and smiled.

  “They run fairly well. They’ll certainly be able to keep up with me, hauling Mishi.”

  Taka smiled briefly, then took off running. She could find a decent camp for the night as well as Mitsu, and she supposed he needed to save his energy for running with a person-sized load on his back.

  14th Day, 3rd Moon, Cycle 1 of the New Council

  MISHI ABSENTLY FIDDLED with the bandage on her arm, as she listened to birds singing in the nearby pines and adjusted the cooking fire for the morning meal. As usual, Mitsu had managed to catch a few rabbits the night before, and today there were leftovers, as well as some fish that Inari had produced from somewhere, presumably the same nearby creek where the children had gone to wash off the mud that still covered them from their various hiding spots over the past few days.

  Kusuko and Inari had strayed into the woods, ostensibly to check for signs of sanzoku, but Mishi privately thought they might be exchanging information. She was reluctant to think ill of either of them after they’d saved her life the day before. Indeed, Inari had even offered her a spare hakama and uwagi this morning, enabling her to shed the soiled set she’d taken from the sanzoku guard. Inari had been nothing but helpful since she had met him. And yet, Mishi couldn’t help but wonder where both his and Kusuko’s loyalties truly lay.

  Mishi stared intently at the fire in front of her, ignoring the chill morning air and the slightly overcast sky, still amazed that she was alive to see it. It was strange, she thought, to truly believe you were about to die, only to find yourself alive on the other side of things. It felt as though something had shifted inside of her. A piece of her that had been stuck somewhere now floated free. A rough patch that had been smoothed no longer pricked her skin, or a small bit of puzzle that had been misaligned now lay flat in line with the rest of her.

  It was too new for her to put words to it, so she sat and stared into the flames of the fire and simply felt it. She used her kisō to shift the fire in its pit, creating patterns in the flames beneath the slow roasting rabbits.

  “Where are you, Mishi-chan?” Taka asked, as she sat beside her friend on a low rock.

  “I’m not sure,” Mishi replied. She knew better than to lie to Taka about how she was feeling, and she wouldn’t have wanted to, anywa
y. “Did you do anything to me yesterday?”

  Taka shook her head gently.

  “I used a bit of kisō to help that wound close, since you seemed exhausted enough as it was without having to heal anything on your own, but aside from exhaustion and a bit of blood loss there wasn’t much for me to treat.”

  Mishi nodded, staring into the fire.

  “Nothing wrong with my kisō?” she asked tentatively.

  Taka shook her head once more.

  “Your kisō seems fine to me now. Mitsu-san said that Yanagi-sensei was able to help you…he didn’t really explain how.”

  Mishi thought about that. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that there was nothing different about her that Taka could detect. Yet she felt decidedly different.

  “Does something seem wrong?” Taka asked.

  Mishi shook her head.

  “Not wrong. Just…different. I don’t know how to describe it yet.”

  She thought for a moment, but couldn’t come up with anything that made sense, so she said, “Let’s talk of something else. When I figure out how to explain it, I’ll try.”

  Taka smiled, then.

  “Perfect, because I came over to ask you about those two little ones you and Mitsu managed to pick up.”

  Mishi smiled a bit at that. She had regained consciousness shortly before they had made camp for the night, although she hadn’t bothered to tell Mitsu to put her down, even after she was awake. She had known better than to think she could move well on her own at that point, and while it had stung her pride to be carried, she had let it go in order to keep from slowing the whole group down. In truth, none of them had been moving overly quickly, save Taka. They’d all had a long hard day of travel, and when camp had finally been found and made no one had even had the energy to eat much of the evening meal that Mitsu caught and prepared for them. Hence, the rabbits that were still there to eat this morning. The seven of them had said almost nothing to each other, simply forcing themselves to swallow a small amount of meat, before each had curled up in his or her own space and slept. They hadn’t even discussed setting a watch, and Mishi wondered if Riyōshi had kept an eye on them during the night, or if the hawk had been as exhausted as the rest of them.