by Duncan Lay
‘Thank you for this, for trusting me,’ he said softly as he grasped the staff.
‘Less talking, more walking. Opening gateways is not fun,’ she told him through gritted teeth.
He pulled himself along the staff, emerging out of the Velsh woods into a beautiful Dokuzen garden, lit by a score of lanterns. He looked around, seeing and hearing nothing and breathed a sigh of relief — before something sprang out of the shadows at him.
He raised his sword instinctively to block an attack but this was no warrior, it was a vine, which fastened itself around his wrists and dragged him to the ground.
‘Asami! It is me, Sendatsu!’ he shouted, but there was no response and another loop of the vine wrapped itself around his neck and began to tighten. His next cry was choked off and all he could manage was a kind of strangled howl.
He forgot all about rescuing Asami and concentrated on saving himself. But the vine was holding his hands tight and he could not tear free, even using all his strength, while the one around his throat was choking him. He tried to summon his limited magic to loosen the vine but this was obviously powered by Asami, for his feeble efforts did nothing. Desperately, he tried to swing his sword at the vine but it jerked tighter still and he lost hold of the hilt. He cursed himself, thinking he should have struck at the staff and brought Rhiannon through to help. He fell to his knees, lungs burning now and the fear of dying here filling his mind, preventing him from summoning any more magic to use against the vine that was killing him. With his vision beginning to dim, he summoned thoughts of Mai and Cheijun and used them to heave upwards, driving his shoulder into the staff before falling to the ground, bright lights flashing in front of his eyes.
Rhiannon stepped through a moment later and summed up the situation in a heartbeat. She pointed and the vine fell away from Sendatsu, allowing him to rise to his knees, where he sucked in deep breaths and felt his hammering heart calm down.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘I am now. Asami obviously put a ward around the tree after all. I should have let you go first.’ He coughed, feeling his breathing return to normal.
‘Not much of a rescue mission, is it, when you have to be rescued before it even began?’ Rhiannon smiled. ‘Luckily there was a helpless maiden standing ready to save you.’
Sendatsu cleared his throat and spat, reached for his sword and stood again.
‘You have never been helpless,’ he told her.
‘Well, thank you, but shouldn’t you be saving the pretty words for Asami?’
Sendatsu began walking towards the main house. ‘Where is she? Surely she should have realised there was someone in her garden?’
‘Maybe she and Gaibun are out. Maybe that’s why they are not replying …’ Rhiannon suggested.
Then they heard the scream, long and bubbling, from inside the house and began running.
‘There’s people coming through the oak tree in my garden!’ Asami cried, skidding to a stop on the tiles.
‘Can you stop them?’ Retsu asked.
‘They will find an unpleasant surprise waiting for them, one I learned from Sumiko herself. We should be safe from that direction,’ Asami said with grim satisfaction.
‘Then we stand here,’ Retsu said, bringing his sword back into the attack position.
‘No, we still need to go to the garden, I can use magic there!’ she called but the first of their attackers was almost on Retsu and he could not turn his back without opening himself to a strike. She rushed back to join him — and felt someone using magic on her wards, ripping them apart. It made her stagger for a moment, then she recovered to block a ferocious swing at her head. She cut down, slicing open her assailant’s stomach, ignoring his long, bubbling scream as he tried unsuccessfully to keep his intestines inside himself. Perhaps the narrow corridor was the best place to defend themselves.
To her left, Retsu used the dragon-tail and cartwheel strokes to take the head of one attacker and the arm of another, the second warrior getting in everyone’s way as he bellowed with agony and sprayed blood over those behind. There were plenty more pressing forwards; Asami lost count of the number of them pushing down the tiled corridor. She blocked sword blows to her front and right then went on the attack, driving back a warrior trying to get around behind them and finishing him with a straight thrust to the throat.
‘Retsu! Back! There are too many!’ she called.
But Gaibun’s father showed no sign of wanting to retreat.
‘I will not show my back to these dogs!’ he roared, his footwork sure and certain on the slippery floor as he cut and thrust and blocked. One of his attackers slipped, going down on one knee, and Retsu pounced, driving his sword through the neck and deep into the chest beyond.
Too deep. His sword stuck in the warrior’s ribs and he was forced to bring up his leg, bracing his foot on the dead man’s shoulder to tear his sword free. But it all took too long and another warrior lashed out at the exposed leg. Retsu jerked it out of the way, saving his leg from being cut off but still suffered a wicked wound above the knee. Retsu cursed and staggered back, struggling to keep his balance with a leg that threatened to collapse under him.
Asami smashed the hilt of her sword into a covered face and then chopped down, taking off a hand at the wrist as she pivoted away from a disembowelling cut. Bodies and wounded warriors clogged up the corridor and they had a moment’s respite. That was all she needed.
‘Retsu! Lean on me! Now we need to go!’ She grabbed him around the waist and dragged him towards the garden. Whatever waited out there, she had a better chance of defeating it with magic than fighting so many attackers with swords.
Then she heard footsteps racing towards her from the garden and slowed, horrified. How many more were there?
‘Asami!’ a familiar voice shouted and her heart leaped. Was that really Sendatsu?
‘We’re here!’ she cried, then spun to see their attackers had caught up with them once more.
‘Let me deal with them,’ Retsu growled, hopping on his good leg. She ignored him to block one slice and duck under another.
One swung at Retsu and she glanced that way, seeing him shuffle backwards, catch the assailant’s sword on his and roll his wrists over to open their throat with a reverse cut. She flicked her gaze to see a sword coming from her left and although she tried to intercept it, the blade still skidded over hers and sliced into her forearm. She felt the steel grate against her bones, sending a shudder through her whole frame, before it burst out the other side.
For a moment she felt nothing other than shock, then blood exploded out of her torn kimono and the pain sprang up her arm, aching and shocking. Disbelief followed a moment later to be replaced by fury and she stepped forwards to chase the attacker with the bloody sword, taking his blade away from him with a feint and then ripping low, sinking her point deep into his groin, and moving upwards. His hideous scream made everyone take an instinctive step back.
Asami felt the strength drain out of her arm as blood dripped down across her fingers. She was torn between wanting to see how bad it was and not wanting to know. She glanced across at Retsu, who was wobbling on one leg, his face determined, then back at the pack of attackers, still clustered thickly in her corridor, easing past the thrashing, dying body of the one she had mutilated.
‘Come on then! What are you waiting for?’ She invited them with her blade before taking a deep breath and reaching into the magic.
For the first time, shockingly, it was hard to find, obscured by pain and blood. But she pressed on and reached out to the blooms on the table, sending them flying towards the pack of attackers, trying the same trick Rhiannon had used.
But the flowers hung in midair, rather than fastening to throats, as she had intended, and she could feel them working together to stop her. She gritted her teeth and pushed on, expecting to overpower them with her greater ability. But the magic seemed to be leaking out of her as fast as the blood dripped down her hand and splashe
d onto the floor. She had to work hard just to keep the flowers away from her and Retsu.
The attackers took a step forwards but Asami felt like she could not move or she would fall.
Then the flowers whistled through the air and struck half-a-dozen of the warriors, fastening around their necks and hands, choking them and preventing them from freeing themselves. As the pack fell back, someone hurtled past Asami and slammed into them. Asami watched dully as Sendatsu fell on the attackers, unable to feel even relief, let alone joy.
Sendatsu ignored the ones lying on the floor or staggering around, trying to get long-stemmed flowers from their necks and hands, and concentrated only on the ones with swords in their hands. He shoulder charged one down then used the waterwheel stroke to take an arm, the zigzag to open a chest. The last pair tried to come at him from either side but he kicked the legs out from the one on his left and took the head of the last. He wiped blood from his eyes and looked for the next threat. Most of the remainder were choking their last on the floor as Rhiannon tightened the flowers around their throats.
‘Keep a couple alive. We need to know who they are,’ Retsu called.
The two downed attackers tried to rise and Sendatsu used the flat of his blade to strike one, then kicked the other in the head. Once they were down, he raced back to Asami’s side.
‘Looks like we got here just in time.’ He tried to smile at her.
‘Earlier would have been better,’ she grunted.
‘Let me see your arm.’ He took it before she could answer and ripped open the bloody kimono sleeve. They both looked at the wound, pulsing blood and showing the white of bone beneath the torn flesh.
‘What do you think?’ she asked faintly.
‘I’ve seen worse,’ he said, tearing off more of the kimono and wrapping it around the wound. ‘But I think you need to see a priest.’
She dropped her sword and reached across to grip the bandage and help him stop the flow of blood.
‘Did you not get our message? We were trying to warn you that Sumiko would attack.’ Sendatsu looked back at the groaning, bleeding pile of intruders filling the corridor.
‘We were just going to look at it when the attack came,’ Retsu said behind them, sliding down the wall until he was sitting with his wounded leg straight out, the foot twitching slightly.
Rhiannon took over with Asami, letting Sendatsu go to Retsu, tearing his jacket and using it as a rough bandage.
‘How did you know she would attack us?’ Retsu asked as Sendatsu tightened the bandage around the leg.
‘We did not know for sure,’ Sendatsu admitted. ‘But she was not after you — she was after Asami. Asami is the threat that she fears. It was lucky you were here, to help fight them off until we came.’
‘Why does she want me dead? I have not challenged her.’
‘Perhaps we could go outside and talk,’ Rhiannon suggested, holding her nose at the foul stench of blood and bowels and brains filling the corridor.
‘Bind the two I knocked out. We will need to talk to them,’ Sendatsu said.
Rhiannon used more flowers to wrap the wrists and ankles of the two unconscious attackers.
‘Should we bring them out as well?’ she asked.
‘We’ll let them lie in the blood and shit. Besides, we don’t want them to hear what we know,’ Sendatsu said roughly.
He helped Retsu hop his way into the fresh air, while Rhiannon held out an arm to Asami.
‘I can still walk,’ Asami told her.
‘I know that. I just offered my help.’
Asami glared at her. ‘I am thankful you came to help, but don’t expect me to forget what you did.’
‘I never expected you to. I am here because Sendatsu asked me,’ Rhiannon said coolly.
Asami groaned. She could not regret Sendatsu and Rhiannon coming, because the pair of them had saved her life, and Retsu’s. But how was she going to talk to Sendatsu in front of Retsu, of all people? And she had never felt less like dealing with him now, with her arm in agony, making it hard to think. She followed Rhiannon out into the garden.
Gaibun stepped out of the oak tree near Patcham with murder in his heart. He was not sure what he would do with Sendatsu’s body — he had half a mind to present Sendatsu’s head to Asami and see what she said then — but he was still able to think. Riding into Patcham and demanding Sendatsu’s head would see him cut down by all the dragons around; they would not let Sendatsu die easily. No, he had to be clever about this.
There were two horses tethered near the oak tree. He wondered what they were doing there but it was a minor consideration. First, he had to find Sendatsu.
The ride across the fields gave him opportunity to think. How could he have been so foolish? He had thought himself so clever, trying to win back Asami and replace Sendatsu in her heart and all the time the pair of them were sneaking around behind his back and laughing at him while in each other’s arms.
And that one night he had spent with Asami — to think that was all a lie made the gorge rise in his throat. It had been all he had imagined, the culmination of years and years of wistful longing and dreaming. But it was all a lie, a trick to humiliate him.
‘Halt! Who’s that?’ A challenge from the shadows made him forget the darkness lurking inside him.
‘It’s me, Gaibun. Who is that?’ Gaibun called, the sing-song lilt of the Velsh voice sounding familiar.
‘Gaibun! Have you come to help us as well, sir?’ The young dragon stepped into the light of a torch by the gate and Gaibun squinted at him.
‘Arval, isn’t it?’ Gaibun hazarded, ignoring the question about the help.
‘That’s right, sir!’ The young dragon grinned, obviously delighted to be remembered.
‘I’m looking for Sendatsu. Do you know where he is?’ Gaibun asked, doing his best to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
‘Aye, I do! He and Rhiannon rode out only a turn or so of the hourglass ago. I heard them talking — something about going to see Asami …’
Gaibun could not hear the rest of the sentence for the blood pulsing in his ears and the hatred filling his mind. So that’s what the horses were doing at the oak tree. He managed to get a grip on his fury and forced a smile onto his face.
‘Thank you, Arval. I must have missed them in the dark. I’ll go and greet them myself.’
He turned the horse and rode away into the night. So Sendatsu would come back through the oaken gateway, fresh from Asami’s bed — and he would be waiting for him.
11
Everyone has dark thoughts inside them. You feel jealous of a friend, or angry with a love, or hurt by a parent. Don’t be afraid of these thoughts. But don’t give in to them, either. Just because you think something unworthy, you don’t have to make it true. And crush them as soon as you find them, in case someone else finds them and brings them out.
‘We need to get you to a priest,’ Sendatsu said, looking at the blood still leaking from the bandaged cut in Retsu’s leg.
‘Perhaps we could send one of the servants?’ Retsu grunted, easing himself down onto a bench.
‘If any of them are alive,’ Asami said grimly. ‘Those guards out the front did not even provide us a warning.’
‘Well, you can’t go and look,’ Sendatsu told Asami. ‘You need help just as much.’
‘I am fine,’ Asami insisted, but still sat down beside Retsu with relief.
‘Wait here,’ Sendatsu said to Rhiannon. ‘If they see you, they will think it is another attack by the Forlish.’
They watched him go back into the house.
‘Asami, I have found more Velsh with magic powers. I am trying to train them, as you trained me,’ Rhiannon said hesitantly.
‘That’s good for you,’ Asami replied quickly. She could sense her former friend wanted to make some gesture but she could not afford to have anything but a hard heart, not with Sendatsu around. If she forgave Rhiannon, then next moment she would be blurting out the truth to Sendatsu and t
hat would only end in disaster.
‘I have tried to send you many messages; you know I regret deeply what happened with us …’
‘As you should,’ Asami told her, mind cringing away from the thought of Sendatsu and Rhiannon together; from the thought she would never be with Sendatsu but Rhiannon had.
‘I did not come here to fight but to help you. Sumiko hates us both and wants us dead.’
Asami held up her hand. ‘I am grateful you came to our rescue. We would be both dead otherwise. But that is another issue and I cannot forgive or forget.’
Rhiannon walked away, heading for the bathhouse, and Asami sighed with a mixture of regret and relief — and pain. Rhiannon swiftly came back with water and towels and they began to clean the blood from their hands and faces.
Sendatsu returned to announce he had found the maid cowering under a bed and told her to go and get a priest.
‘This is getting to be a habit, being attacked in my own home,’ Asami said, washing her right hand but not daring to move her left. The pain was now pulsing up her arm.
‘Do you want me to help with that?’ Sendatsu offered.
She was about to agree, then she remembered how they had parted, and who was sitting beside her. ‘I’ll wait until the priest gets here. You are sure the maid is going to get one?’
‘No idea.’ Sendatsu shrugged. ‘She could still be hiding beneath a bed. But she wasn’t going to get out while I was around.’
Asami shook her head. ‘Then I had better go and do it myself.’
‘Not so fast. You can’t go alone — what if more of them came?’
‘Do you have any better suggestions?’
‘I go with you.’
Asami waved a hand. ‘Fine. Let’s be quick.’
He offered his hand but she ignored it. ‘It’s my arm that’s wounded, not my leg.’