Find Me, page 19
Hissing Blade has started a campaign against the Goho. I shall try and tie up his army in the south. Losses to both sides will be extraordinary, no doubt. I may not return. You are my heir, Iwashito, the Ishii are yours. But as the last request of your lord, you will assist the Satsuma in taking Sunlit City.
Sora is to be the emperor and you are to serve him, as the Ishii has always been the protectors of the divine lineage.
Care for Ayame. She’s to always have a home at Moonlight. Should she wed, you’re to gift her Yumegahara Castle and provide her the stipend to live as she’s accustomed to.
I’ve tried to write her a letter and lost my nerve. When things are better, perhaps explain to her that I’ve done this for her.
Good fortune in what is to come, son. Hissing Blade is a formidable enemy. Consult with Ayame about his abilities before you approach him. Do us all a grand favor and put that bastard’s lights out.
He’d signed his name just ‘Kyuzo’ without the honorifics. Ayame stared at the scrap of rice paper for a beat before tossing it into the fire. She’d been furious with him. But that was then and this was now. With every bit of new carnage they ran into, her spirit sank a little deeper into the bottomless pit of despair.
She made small conversations with Eclipse about his family as they strolled together back to the town—or what used to be one.
Over two-thirds of Nara was mountainous terrain with varying vegetation. What had clearly been a farming village came into view as Ayame and Eclipse went over the hill. The pasture was green in the valley, but the wooden huts were black and jagged. The grass had greened since the fire, meaning it’d been a while. So the bodies decaying in the river came from somewhere else, and this was the daily scene.
Ayame would walk a few hours a day when her joints felt stiff and swollen, but Eclipse pulled her rickshaw otherwise. He had a horse but didn’t like riding it unless it was into battle. He was too large and hadn’t wanted to burden his mount for the long journey. So he and Ayame trotted along with the foot soldiers and male attendants of the bujin.
Male lovers were prevalent among the warriors, and even Jester who wouldn’t shut up about the beauty and youth of his second wife sometimes disappeared at night, taking one of the younger warriors from a different house. They were all Ishii but bujin of different vassals also carried their lineage banners strapped to a pole on their persons. Those had the color and the crest of their perspective lords. It was a way to tell each apart, Ayame guessed, but Goodnight carried nothing other than his mounting resentment and anger, burden enough.
As Ayame entered the ghost town with Eclipse following a few paces behind, she saw Goodnight gathering some supplies he’d found at the town center—a few sacks of rice, it looked like. Ayame learned that peasants dug holes and hid things when they ran away from home, and those were sometimes missed by the raiders, the imperial army in this case.
They decided to stay the night in the village as heavy rain clouds gathered overhead. The air felt charged for a storm.
‘The horses need rest,’ Goodnight had mumbled, but something else had been on his mind. Ayame could read him like an open book because he was an honest one.
Later that night, she, Jester, Goodnight, Eclipse, and some others squeezed into a hut with a good roof. Fire burned in the hearth as the rain drummed the wooden walls and the winds lashed at the thatched roof, nearly lifting it off.
Ayame ate her ration and didn’t ask for more, although she was still hungry. The men were starving, she knew. She brushed her teeth and readied for sleep, unrolling her mat by the fire. Then she lay down and listened to the men talk amongst themselves. This was a usual thing, but tonight, Goodnight’s anxiety could be felt like the quills of a porcupine. The irritation spiked out of him.
“That’s it,” she heard him say. “That’s all there is to it.”
She turned and saw him looking at a map painted on hide, spread on the floor by him as the men sat in a circle around it.
“We’re here?” Eclipse pointed at the map.
“Here, Eclipse.” Jester tapped. “This is that hill to the south. The village is here.”
“But that’s…” The giant scratched his neck. His expression was the same on the other bujin’s faces—confused.
Ayame tried not to be a nuisance and didn’t go over there, but she was curious.
“Where are the Goho, then?” another asked.
“In the sea, maybe,” Goodnight said. “We’ll find out tomorrow. We’ve reached the southern end of Nara.”
“What?” Ayame burst out. She pushed herself off the floor to get up and waddle over to where the men were.
She peered over Goodnight’s shoulder and saw them looking at a map of Nara, divided in the provinces with the colors and banners. An old map, she supposed, for the Shimura had a decent chunk carved up.
“We’re here, girl.” Goodnight put a finger on at the southmost tip of Nara. “If not tomorrow, the day after that, we’ll be looking at the ocean.”
“Do you think maybe the Goho sailed away?” Ayame asked.
“And go where?” Jester challenged. “You see these islands?” He pointed at the specks all around Nara, like little crumbs floating away in water. “These are all pirates. They nest here because imperial ships don’t sail this way. They’re selfish, have no honor, and they wouldn’t call Ryu trouble their way by aiding the Goho. They have no skin in this fight.”
Where is Kyuzo-dono, then?
“Maybe they’re just done dying,” Goodnight said. Ayame didn’t like how pessimistic he’d grown. “One thing for certain though, we’re about to run into the imperial forces.”
The rain howled louder as everyone fell silent, their faces as somber as the weather.
“Goodnight, let’s not do that,” Jester said. He brought out his pipe and loaded it with the last of his herbs, overturning his pouch. “Let’s not face all of Nara alone. A suicide, it’s a dog’s death, brother.” The smoke rolled from his thin lips and hung in the air as men with beards thoughtfully stroked them.
To his credit, Goodnight seemed to consider it, but he ultimately said, “Can’t lose my lord twice in the same lifetime and go home alive. Come on, what happened to your warrior honor?”
Ayame knelt by him, and Eclipse scooted some to make her room in the circle. “Goodnight.” She sighed his name. She’d grown more during her short time in the floating world than during the millennium in Immortal Court. Perhaps when time didn’t pass, the mind didn’t mature. Or maybe it took hardship to make an adult.
Whatever the reason, against her fondest wish to be reunited with her lord, she said, “If you all die here, you leave Yukiyama defenseless. Tobei, Taro, your bride, Goodnight, and thousands of more women and children. If the Goho are gone, my lord as well, now all Hissing Blade wants is Sora.
“Ride by the Satsuma, claim Sora and hand him to the emperor. Sue for peace from a position of strength. Protect your people. That is what your lord would have done. Without Ishii support or claim to the throne, the Satsuma will yield. With your first decision as lord, consider saving lives rather than wasting them.” Ayame wouldn’t have thought she’d suggest such a thing, but here she was. Had Kyuzo-dono passed over, there was no sense in crowding the in-between further by his entire clan joining him.
Only a handful of more moons Ayame had to carry the human soul inside. After the child was born, she’d leave it in Misaki and Puff’s care, and go to the in-between. An eternity it might take her, and she might never return to the Immortal Court, but she’d find his soul and help him leave through the red torii, into heaven, rather than call him back to the troubles of the world—a thing she should have done the first time around. Then, Blue Dragon would still be alive, she wouldn’t have made a human she couldn’t care for, and Kyuzo-dono wouldn’t have suffered death twice.
Wraith’s fate was always tied to Sora’s, but all the other bujin lost in Ikidomari would be alive, and Master Grey too. People in Kagemori hills and rivers, and the warriors buried outside Enju, Ayame had altered all their fates and the history of Nara by not leaving the dead alone. It was time to let go. Her life was hers to throw away, but she didn’t wish to bring harm upon anyone else. She’d done enough.
Goodnight didn’t speak after that. Much was on his mind. Then, as they tried to fall asleep to the sound of rain dripping through the raggedy roof, tap, tap, tap on the wooden boards, Jester came and sat by Ayame’s mat after tossing and turning for a while.
He spruced up the fire by tossing wood, broken pieces of village huts, and stared at it, the red hue falling on his face. “Goodnight?” he said.
“Yeah,” he answered from the corner where he’d been lying awake, shifting about on his mat. When Ayame sat up to look at him, he had an arm over his face.
“Ask for volunteers,” said Jester. “Some of us may still want to continue the journey and see it through. You ride home, look after our own. I’ll take the volunteers to the end of Nara.”
“I thought you had a wife?” Ayame butted in.
“Right, I have a wife. I’m not a wife,” said Jester. “I’m a warrior.”
“And what am I?” asked Goodnight, sitting up agitated.
“You’re the Lord of Ishii now. Your life is not your own,” Jester said.
Eclipse’s hand flew up. “I volunteer.”
“Shit on that,” Goodnight said, and lay back down, turning his back to the room like an upset child.
Ayame didn’t know what he meant till the next morning when he handed off the reins of control to Lord Hosoya Akira. The Hosoya were the largest of the Ishii vassal houses, and Ayame would have guessed Lord Akira was Wraith’s father even had she not known. The man looked exactly like him, just two decades older and with some silver in his hair. That was how Wraith would have aged had he lived, graceful and stern, and Ayame tried imagining the lord as a martial arts school teacher.
The Ishii force split, but a surprising number, about one tenth of the force totaling nearly three thousand warriors, had volunteered.
“That’s good.” Goodnight twisted his head from side to side, releasing the cricks in his neck. Having shed off the burden of duty, he sat taller on Victory. “We trimmed the fat. Now it’s go time, girl.”
Shocking no one, Ayame volunteered, or rather, she insisted. Selfish as ever, she’d rather do this than be a decent mother. All that plan about rearing the child and finding her lord in the in-between was abandoned when Goodnight carried her bags to the side leaving for Yukiyama, and said, ‘Have a safe trip, girl, and try not to pop on the way. Bujin are terrible midwives. I’ll tell my lord all about how large you’ve grown when I see him.’
It felt unfair that Goodnight should see her lord and she wouldn’t, and in a single breath, all her found maturity evaporated like a boiling pot. She reverted back to her impulsive, selfish, bad tempered, storm-like self that shifted direction and sank boats at her pleasure. Choosing a gentle flower name, Ayame—iris, hadn’t turned a new leaf, apparently. She was still a storm spirit at heart.
“All right, all right, all right!” Goodnight hollered from Victory, and someone freely blew the war shell. “Ready, girl?”
“As ever.” She got into her rickshaw, and Eclipse picked up the poles. She wasn’t slowing them down for plenty of ashigaru had volunteered. Unlike the Ryu conscripts, they were still paid soldiers, just lower ranking than the mounted bujin. And the seniority of warriors had little to do with the size of their courage. Where lords had turned, foot soldiers had stayed.
twenty-one
His Wife
A small space on a map but an eye full to take in, the end of Nara was a natural fortress of mountain ranges, the farthest one blue in the distance and the closer ones lush green with pink patches where the cherry blossom had grown in groups. After a day’s hike, as the setting sun skidded golden across the sapphire river serpentining in the ravine, Ayame stood at the mountaintop, breathing it all in.
“Blue Mountain Gorge, it’s called,” Goodnight said. The men had dismounted. They’d been discussing where to stay for the night.
“Blue Mountain?” Ayame asked. “Home of the Ryu?”
Jester came up to stand next to her. “A millennium ago,” he said. “They say the first emperor was born in these mountains. It gives credence to Goho’s claim to the divine lineage.”
This would also be a place they’d pick for their last stand, their cradle. As soon as Ayame realized the vastness of the landscape, she regretted having a voice in sending the Ishii home for there was a fair chance that her lord might be here, on one of these mountains still. On the other hand, these thick forests, trees close enough to each other to be whispering secrets, could hide the massive imperial army under the guise of serenity.
As the sun dipped lower and the light coming through the thick branches overhead grew pale, the Ishii force fanned out for the night.
A regiment was five hundred warriors and split further into kumi of twenty. An army should be led by a lord or a general he’d assigned, but Goodnight refusing to claim either title, no one was in charge. Instead, he made Jester mounted taicho—captain of the riders, and himself the captain of the ashigaru. Should they face the Ryu line of arquebusiers, Goodnight wanted to oversee the foot soldiers because they were the regiment of archers.
The two captains kept the war shells, and the men spread out in kumis—the easiest way to comb the hill and not run into Ryu traps bunched all together. Goodnight was wary of being shot at from the treeline while they crossed the river and wanted to do it at night and in various places, and in small groups. Should one of the kumi find the enemy, everyone else would surely hear it—their weapon was ‘damn loud’ as Goodnight put it.
Ayame put herself in Goodnight’s group as they made their way through the woods in the fading light. She abandoned her rickshaw as the trail grew narrow and tried to keep pace with the men and not be a hindrance. Eclipse stayed with her though, and carried all her bags.
The loudness of the cicada gave way to calls of the nocturnal birds as constellations twinkled between the trees gently rustling the night breeze. The earth smelled of fresh grass and hissed like a breaking wave as the wind passed through the giants with reddish barks, a forest of ancient cypress.
The men hadn’t lit torches, but the sky was clear and the moon was bright and full, coming into sudden view as they stepped out of the trees into the short shrubbery on the bank of the river. The dark green moss on the boulders looked black and shiny in the moonlight.
The current was rapid and loud, but the water seemed shallow. Victory crossed after Goodnight. The bujin had dismounted once they started descending, and the branches became too low to ride, but the horse followed him around unless told to stay. Although both horse and master crossed without too much trouble, Ayame gauged that the current would sweep her away if she lost her footing and clung onto Eclipse’s arm for her life. He offered to carry her on his back, but sadly, her belly was in the way.
There had been eighteen men crossing behind them, taking their time and careful with their footing, but they all dashed across with great splashes as arrows began showering.
Ayame hid behind Eclipse’s mass. A few stuck the giant, but it wasn’t an easy thing to kill an armored bujin with an arrow—not everyone was Goodnight.
Once across the river, Ayame scurried to take cover behind a tree, but when the shrubbery became alive and attacked her, Eclipse picked it up and smashed it onto a boulder. A sickening crack and a squelch turned her stomach.
Standing over what she’d thought was the forest coming to life, she realized it was a man who’d tied some branches to himself. A peasant perhaps, he had a dagger in his hand. Certainly dead though, as his neck was crushed and his head punched into his body from where Eclipse picked him up and slammed him into a rock, head first.
The river was too loud to hear the clanking of weapons, but plenty of yelling ensued as a fight broke out all around her.
Paces away from Ayame and in the knee-deep water, Goodnight took on two of these tree people. Another one of them, mounted, charged for Goodnight. The tachi, the curved longsword that only mounted bujin carried to cut down ground soldiers, glinted as he came at Goodnight.
“Goodnight, duck!” Ayame yelled, her fists balled at her side.
She didn’t know if he heard her, but he hadn’t needed her help as he pushed one of their own right in the way of the mounted tree, freeing his blade, killing an enemy, and sending the rider skidding across the water all at once. The bow was in his hand as fast as the sword was in its sheath. A black feathered arrow flew at the rider just as he turned his steed around, finding the slat between the war mask and the helmet. He fell off his horse into the river and was carried off by the current.
This was a bujin fight. No one was shooting, but with a hundred clans assimilated into the imperial army, there was no telling which one had attacked—neither side was displaying their crest.
Despite their peculiar appearance and Ayame’s initial fright thinking them demons, they were just men, losing to the Ishii at that, and if there was a monster in the fight, it was Eclipse. Because he was so kind, she’d never realized he could break a man’s face with a punch, through the war mask and all. He swung his sword like an axe, slow and wide, but when it struck, it chopped through the bone.
One of the Ishii ashigaru rolled on the ground, tussling with a shrub cloaked man, and when it landed atop the Ishii, inching a knife to his throat, Ayame picked up a rock and brought it down onto its head. A straw hat, not a helmet, and it connected like Eclipse’s punch, the brain oozing out through the broken skull.
A shadow moved in her peripheral and Ayame threw a rock at it, chasing it with a scream, but it was a shinigami. Dark and in the forest, there was no way of telling if something was a tree person, an enemy warrior, an Ishii, a death god, or just a tree.
