by Cindy Lin
Yet the Tiger Warrior met his attack blow for blow, her wood staff whirling and spinning as she turned and twisted. The pulse of distant temple drums was drowned out by the clash of their weapons. Every eye in the courtyard was turned toward the fiery duel.
With a roar, the Dragonlord heaved his sword across Horangi’s torso.
“Teacher!” Usagi cried. The old warrior leaped out of the way with surprising agility. She glanced at Usagi and smiled briefly, then threw her staff up as the Dragonlord’s sword came down with a bone-rattling crash. “All of you, go! Now!” the old warrior ordered, her voice ringing with authority.
“Hold on!” Saru called to the Tigress, her voice breaking. “We’re coming!”
Horangi straightened and her green eyes blazed. “I said, RUN!”
She turned and looked right at the Blue Dragon as he raised his sword and plunged it over her head. As he struck the Tiger Warrior, a blinding flash of white light and a walloping boom blasted outward from the last member of the Twelve, shaking the earth and the very air around them, knocking down anyone still standing. Usagi was thrown back.
Ears ringing, she lifted her head from the ground. For a long, disorienting moment, Usagi couldn’t hear anything but a high-pitched whine, even as the earth continued to tremble beneath her. As her hearing came back to her, Saru’s horrified cries grew louder and louder. They echoed through the courtyard as the Monkey Heir tried crawling to where Horangi had been standing. But Inu and Nezu held Saru back, for the Tigress was nowhere to be seen. The Blue Dragon stood amid the wreckage of the platform, roaring in triumph.
Where had Horangi gone? The ring of fire had disappeared, while black blast marks streaked out in all directions from the collapsed platform, striping the courtyard and temple walls. As the Academy younglings picked themselves up and saw the Blue Dragon holding his sword aloft, they began to cheer. Across the city, fireworks popped and flared, shrieking into the skies as if joining in their celebration. “No,” Usagi whispered. Tears filled her eyes.
But the earth had not stopped shaking—the shuddering was getting worse. Squinting, Usagi saw that the Treasures had been knocked from the altar, and the Coppice Comb lay quivering on the ground. The marble tiles of the courtyard cracked and split as dozens of trees rumbled out of the earth. Cadets screamed and tried to scurry out of the way. Usagi spied an opportunity.
Scrambling to her feet, she leaped high in the air, reaching the fallen Treasures in a single bound. She lunged for the Mirror of Elsewhere and snatched up the Apothecary, stuffing them both inside her tunic. Her hands grasped at the Bowl of Plenty when someone slammed into her, knocking her aside. “Oh no you don’t!” her sister snarled.
Usagi tried again to grab the bowl, but Uma hurled herself at Usagi, pulling at her sleeves, her arms, her collar, reaching for the Treasures she’d hidden in her top. Usagi hunched over and batted away Uma’s hands. She felt a hard tug and a stinging snap at her neck, and then Uma stepped away, holding up a broken leather cord with Usagi’s wooden rabbit.
“Give me that!” cried Usagi. She reached for it, feeling as if she’d been stripped of her own skin.
“If you want this,” said Uma, “then hand those Treasures back.”
Usagi shook her head helplessly. “I can’t. Let me explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” Uma flared. “You lied to me!” Her voice grew louder and louder, until it was a near shriek. “You had a choice—Lord Druk and Captain Tupa both gave one to you—and you chose strangers over me!” The wooden carving caught fire, and Usagi squealed as if she were on fire with it. The leather cord blackened and shriveled, giving off an acrid smoke. Uma’s face was filled with fury, and her fist turned white-hot as she burned the rabbit pendant to ash.
A horrified wail burst out of Usagi. “Papa made that!” she cried. “It’s all we have left of him!”
The briefest flicker of regret crossed Uma’s face before she opened her hand and let a blackened fragment fall to the ground. “You did this to yourself. Now give me the Treasures!”
“No!” Usagi snatched up the burnt sliver of wood, still hot and smoking. She searched for the Bowl of Plenty, but in the wreckage of the wooden platform and emerging copse of trees, Usagi couldn’t see it. As the grove of trees continued to grow, over the rumbling earth and screams of confusion, she heard Saru calling. Standing at the courtyard entrance with Inu and Nezu in their Striker armor, the Monkey Heir waved frantically at her to join them.
Uma lunged at Usagi, trying to get at the mirror and pillbox stashed in her tunic, but Usagi shook her off and stared into her sister’s face, so twisted with anger that she hardly recognized her.
“I’m sorry,” she told Uma, her voice shaking. She tucked the burnt remains of the rabbit carving away, her palm blistered. “I still love you.” Usagi turned and sprang into the air, high over the copse of trees crowding the blast-streaked courtyard, away from her sister, leaping toward the Heirs.
“I hate you!” Uma screamed.
The words struck Usagi’s heart like ice. She glanced back for a dizzying moment and saw her sister standing near the wreckage of the altar for the Treasures, small in the chaos but nearly glowing with rage. Averting her gaze, Usagi plunged toward the entrance to the temple complex and felt her legs buckle. For the first time in months, Usagi fell.
Wood
“The season of the Wood element is Spring—a time for planting seeds, new beginnings, and fresh growth.”
—Book of Elements, from The Way of the Twelve
Chapter 25
The Tigress’s Nest
USAGI TUMBLED INTO A HEAP outside the entrance to the temple complex, hitting the ground with a bone-rattling jolt. Spit and spleen. It had been a long time since she’d landed so badly. The Heirs rushed to haul her to her feet. They’d put their Striker helmets back on, looking for all the world like the Blue Dragon’s elite forces.
“Are you all right?” asked Inu, his dark gaze full of concern.
Wincing, she nodded. “What happened to the Tigress? Did you see?”
Saru shook her head, red-rimmed eyes bleak. “Just a flash of light and then the explosion. I don’t know what the Blue Dragon did, but . . . she’s gone.” Inu patted her arm, his mouth drawn in a tight line. He sniffled and pushed his helmet over his eyes. Heaviness settled in Usagi’s chest.
“I—I couldn’t get them all, but I grabbed a couple of the Treasures,” she said, searching for something good to tell them. “Though the Coppice Comb’s still back there, and I lost the Bowl of Plenty.”
“It’s amazing you got anything at all,” Nezu said with a wan smile. “We should get out of here before they realize we have some.”
Usagi looked back at the temple courtyard, bursting with trees and echoing with the shouts of the Academy cadets and a jubilant Dragonlord. “How?”
The Rat Heir pulled his helmet lower. “We’re all in palace uniforms. If we don’t run and call attention to ourselves, we can walk out. Quickly—before an alarm is raised.”
They hustled away from the temple, heading through the grounds to the palace’s front gate. Usagi stopped and pointed. “It’s closed. That means the smaller gates will be locked too.” She looked fretfully up at the spring moon, hanging high in the sky like a round temple lantern. “It’s already the hour of the Ox—they won’t open till morning.”
“Don’t panic,” said Inu, steering them away. “The garden at the edge of the Central Court overlooks the Phoenix River. We’ll scale the wall there and swim if we have to. We can use spirit speed once we’re out.” They hurried through the palace’s Outer Court, which was relatively deserted, though they twice crossed paths with patrolling Guards. At the sight of them Usagi grew light-headed, but she joined the Heirs in exchanging stern salutes with the patrols without breaking stride. They passed the armory, where, Nezu confided to Usagi, the Heirs had broken in and obtained their Striker armor.
The drums and fireworks across the city had ceased, and th
e only sounds were from the pounding of their feet and the clatter of the Heirs’ armor. Then Usagi heard a birdcall.
Twee hee, hoo hoo.
She turned. The call came again, and then someone hissed her name. Crouching in the shadows of the Royal Library was Tora. She stepped out with her hands raised. “I’m not trying to stop you.”
“Wait!” Usagi told the Heirs. She ran to her friend. “What are you doing here?”
“We want to come with you,” Tora said, nervously smoothing down the shorn ends of her hair.
Usagi’s heart leaped. “‘We’?” Was Uma with her? Had she changed her mind?
An enormous boy came out of the shadows, along with a slip of a girl, her braided hair coiled about her head. She had a hopeful look in her dark eyes. “Usagi,” said Rana. “Goru and I have been looking for a chance to escape from the day they captured us.”
“When someone’s taken you from your home against your will, it’s hard to believe anything they tell you,” added Goru with a raised eyebrow.
Rana bowed. “If you let us, we’d like to come with you and your friends.”
Startled, Usagi turned to Tora, who nodded. “It’s not that we didn’t try to fit in. And I thought I was starting to. But it wasn’t always easy to forget.” She rubbed the scars on her arm. “Then you showed up. And I couldn’t do anything but remember.”
“We’ve been sticking together. Goru always says there’s strength in numbers,” Rana said. “Even though he’s probably stronger than all of us put together. If we may join you, maybe we’ll have a chance at a different fate.”
“I—I’d have to see what the others say,” Usagi stammered. The three Heirs came clacking up behind her, weapons drawn, and she quickly apprised them of the situation. Glowering, they inspected the Academy students suspiciously.
“Peace, friends,” Goru said, and bowed. “I know of a spot for escape. It’s through the garden of the Inner Court. It’ll take us straight into the hills. I didn’t want to try it alone, because it’s not far from the Dragonlord’s quarters. We’ll have to hurry before he returns from the temple.”
Inu frowned. “We’ve been betrayed once already. How do we know this isn’t a trap?”
“You don’t,” said Goru. With slow and careful movements, he removed the scabbard at his side and laid it on the ground, while Tora and Rana followed suit. “So we offer you our swords.”
“As a sign of good faith,” added Tora. Her amber eyes were steady as she gazed at Usagi. “But if you don’t trust us, then tell us now and we’ll leave you be.”
“I trust you,” Usagi burst out. She looked at the Heirs pleadingly. “Tora’s as much a sister to me as Uma is. She’s saved me so many times. If it weren’t for her I’d probably be here—forced into the Academy too. None of them chose to be brought here.”
After exchanging glances with Inu and Nezu, Saru motioned to Usagi to gather up the younglings’ weapons. She brandished her moon blade. “Show us this spot. If there’s any hint that you’ve lied to us, I won’t hesitate to use this.”
“Fair enough,” said Goru with a nod. He led them through the grounds to the Inner Court, where there was a garden with immaculately sculpted trees and a pavilion by a pond that reminded Usagi of Crescent Lake. The garden was quiet and dark, lit only by the ghostly light of the moon. With the help of Tora’s tiger vision, Goru guided them to a remote, secluded corner. There, the palace wall loomed high, separating the manicured grounds from the wild brush of the hills that overlooked the city.
“Now what?” asked Nezu. He smoothed his whisker-less lip, singed bare by the explosion that took the Tigress. “The four of us can leap or climb over this wall easily enough, but what about you?”
“Oh, there’s no need to go over,” said Rana. She stepped to the base of the wall and placed her hands on the ground. Her forehead wrinkled in concentration as she pushed against the earth like she was kneading dough. Before long a hole appeared beneath the wall, the dirt falling away from Rana’s hands. “We can use this tunnel.”
Goru chuckled. “Nice work, Earth Snake, but it’s a little small for me.” He stuck his thick fingers along a marble block in the wall directly above Rana’s tunnel, and wiggled and pulled, gritting his teeth. The block came free and he yanked it out with a heave and a grunt. It was nearly as long as Usagi was tall. He placed it easily on the ground as if it were an old, dry sponge, then tried to squeeze his shoulders into the hole left in the wall. “One more,” he muttered. He pulled out another block in a spray of mortar dust and stone chips.
Nezu grinned. “You’ve made your point.”
One by one they squeezed to the other side. As Goru and Rana restored the wall and the earth to cover their tracks, Tora gave Usagi a firm hug. “I’m sorry about Uma,” she whispered. “She’ll find her way to us again.”
Usagi’s eyes prickled with hot tears as the failure of their mission hit her. They’d been betrayed by Tupa, the Tigress had been vanquished by the Blue Dragon, and her sister . . . now hated her.
But not Tora. She blinked away her tears and hugged her best friend back. “I thought I lost you both.”
“They gave us these swords for the spring festival. The Dragonlord said they’re from Waya, but . . . something about them made me realize we were being lied to.”
“What was it?” asked Usagi. Then she stiffened at the sound of frantic clanging. “Bells. I think they know we’re—”
Inu interrupted. “We need to get out of here, and fast. Have you younglings ever tried spirit speed?”
When Tora and the other cadets shook their heads, he smiled. “Then we’ll teach you on the way to Mount Jade.” In the darkness, Inu hurried them away from the palace wall and straight into the underbrush. They ran through the hills until they could no longer see the lights of the city below them and were deep in the wilderness, leaving the Blue Dragon and his Academy far behind.
A warm breeze blew into the Great Hall at the Shrine of the Twelve, wafting the scent of spring’s last blossoms around Usagi and Saru. They circled each other on the mats, Usagi watching warily as Saru paced about. Without warning, the Monkey Heir lunged.
Ducking, Usagi kicked and caught her heel on Saru’s sleeve. Saru shook her off and punched rapidly at Usagi’s head and torso, unable to land a single blow as Usagi deflected her fists with swift movements of her own. Then Usagi darted forward and flipped Saru, thumping her onto her back.
“That was a good one!” Saru beamed. She sat up and turned to her audience. “It’s all about defense. Got that?”
Tora, Rana, and Goru watched closely, sitting cross-legged by the sparring area. They nodded. Though the three former cadets still wore the indigo uniforms with their respective ruling animals—tiger, snake, and ox—stitched on the right shoulder, the dragon embroidery on the left side of their tunics had been ripped out. Rana’s dark eyes were thoughtful as she chewed on the end of a braid that had come uncoiled. Goru stretched and flexed his large hands as if he couldn’t wait to spar.
Tora slipped her fingers into the thick fur of Kumo’s pelt and scratched the cloud leopard’s neck as he dozed. Upon returning to the shrine, they’d been greeted by an agitated Kumo, who lashed his tail from side to side, looking for Horangi. He’d paced the grounds yowling, and only Tora seemed to be able to settle him down. Since then, the cloud leopard trailed after her much as he’d followed the Tigress.
Nearly a month had gone by since returning to Mount Jade. The newcomers were settling in nicely, after an ascent that took them through challenges created by the Warriors of old. Goru had impressed everyone when he went through the Bashing Boulders like Usagi had. Instead of leaping over the rolling stones, he’d stopped them in their tracks and lifted them up and out of his way.
And despite the younglings’ lack of training in areas like breathing, mind-the-mind, calligraphy, and other subjects that the Tigress had drilled into Usagi and the Heirs, they were quick to learn and never complained. Usagi especially liked havi
ng them help her with chores—Rana could clean a room in seconds, gathering all the dust in piles that tumbled themselves out the door.
Now the three leaned forward eagerly as Saru told Usagi to prepare for an attack. Usagi got into a ready stance and waited. The Monkey Heir sprang, feet aimed squarely at her head. Usagi let out a cry and whirled around, sweeping one leg behind her to knock Saru to the ground. She grinned at the awed looks on the others’ faces.
“At the Academy, even with all the equipment and grand uniforms, you were never taught defense?” The moves she and Saru were demonstrating seemed basic to Usagi now. She caught herself. Once it had all been new to her too.
“They told us defensive maneuvers were a waste of time. It was about the attack,” Goru explained. “Having a strong offense was more important than anything else.”
Saru frowned. “If you can properly deflect a blow, it doesn’t matter how vicious the attack.”
The memory of Uma swinging at her with her fiery sword flared in Usagi’s mind. She flinched. Would she ever forget the look of hate on her sister’s face? She glanced over at Tora. For the most part, Tora was adjusting well to being at the shrine, but there were times she would seem distracted or sad, and she didn’t like to talk about her months at the Academy. Usagi smiled at her friend, but Tora was staring into the distance, a faraway look in her eyes.
Shaking her head, Saru looked at the chest of Treasures, empty except for the two relics Usagi had saved. “Now that Teacher’s gone, it’s only a matter of time before the Blue Dragon tries once more to conquer the only part of Midaga that won’t bend to him.”
“Which part is that?” asked Rana.
Goru tweaked her stray braid. “Mount Jade, of course,” he said.
“Not if I can help it,” said Usagi. She raised her chin, feeling fiercely protective of their little band and their haven. “We can’t let him win.”