Dragon Sword and Wind Child (23 page)

“If we travel north, we can reach the Asakura pastures in two days' time. The pastures supply war-horses directly to the Palace of Light. Let's take those pastures first,” Lord Akitsu announced one evening to all those assembled, after various suggestions had been made.

“Us? Take the pastures?”

Surprise spread across the faces of those assembled. The one-eyed lord continued. “We have mastered the art of taking advantage of the terrain to ambush our enemy on foot, but in this war it is crucial to think ahead. We'll need cavalry. The time will come when we must confront the forces of Light face-to-face on the plains.”

“Are you saying that we have an even chance in a direct confrontation with the army of Light?” one of the older commanders asked in surprise.

“Exactly. From now on, we must ride the winds of fortune. Isn't that right, Lady Iwa?”

She nodded expressionlessly. “Lady Iwa predicts that this campaign will be a crucial battle leading to a final, decisive confrontation between the forces of Darkness and Light. This is our last and greatest opportunity to reverse our fortune and rescue Toyoashihara from the hands of the immortals.”

There was a stunned silence when he finished speaking, followed immediately by a buzz of excited whispering.

“Of course! We have the Dragon Sword. This time we might even have the power to overthrow the immortals themselves.”

Lord Ibuki scratched his nose slowly and muttered doubtfully, “The pastures? I wonder if they'll have a horse large enough for me.”

Lord Shinado, who was sitting to the right of Lord Akitsu, said confidentially, as if unable to contain himself, “You're surely thinking of Chihaya. He could never keep up with us in battle if we went on foot.”

Lord Akitsu smiled faintly as he looked at him. “Actually, I was thinking of Saya. But I suppose it's really the same thing.”

“You intend to take the Princess to war?” Lord Shinado demanded, his expression hardening.

“We have no choice,” Lord Akitsu replied. “How else can we keep the Wind Child at our side?”

IN A SUNLIT GARDEN
bordered by a fence, Lord Ibuki was bellowing in his distinctive gruff voice despite the early morning hour. Brandishing a wooden sword, he moved with an agility that belied his hulking frame. “Come on now! Move! Look! Here's my heart, here's my stomach. You can't even touch me when I'm wide open.”

Chihaya lunged at him halfheartedly, but naturally every blow was repulsed. Lord Ibuki's great belly loomed directly before his eyes, but it was not easily reached.

“I've never seen such a clumsy thrust, you numbskull!”

Chihaya narrowly dodged a blow to his head. Although Lord Ibuki had not put his full force behind it, the blow would have resulted in more than a lump if it had connected.

“But this stick is so heavy.”

“What are you going to do if even a wooden sword is too heavy? How can you call yourself a man?”

Torihiko, who was perched on Saya's shoulder watching them practice said, “It looks like Chihaya's just fooling around.”

“Well, it can't be helped. After all, he doesn't understand why he needs to do this,” Saya replied. In fact, Chihaya's progress was so slow she felt that even she could do better. Though he had received blows hard enough to bruise as chastisement, he never once fought back in earnest. Although she did not particularly want him to learn sword fighting, the thought of sending him to war like this worried her. She had begun practicing in private with a wooden sword of her own so that she could help him should the need arise.

“You're working hard, Lord Ibuki,” someone called out from the cool shade of a tree. Looking around, Saya saw Lord Shinado leaning his spare frame against the tree trunk. His light blue jacket was open over his bare chest.

“Ho!” said Lord Ibuki, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “It's you. You're the best sword fighter among the lot of us. Why don't you teach this lazybones some of your secrets?”

Lord Shinado was close enough that Saya could see him clearly as he turned his gaze slowly toward Chihaya. Unaware that he was observed, he let the feelings that he usually kept carefully concealed cross his face for an instant: stabbing hatred and malice.

Chilled, Saya fervently hoped that Lord Ibuki would not give him the wooden sword. But Lord Shinado smiled coldly and shook his head.

“I haven't the skill to teach someone who doesn't know death. For how could he ever understand the meaning of the words ‘to fight for one's life'?”

“Ahh—I see.” Lord Ibuki looked at Chihaya in surprise. Apparently, it was the first time this thought had ever occurred to him.

Lord Shinado added casually, “Why not try giving him a few mortal injuries? He might just become a little more like us.”

He left the shade of the tree and began to walk away. As he passed, he happened to glance in Saya's direction. Incensed by his suggestion, she blurted out, “How can you say such a horrible thing?”

A faint look of surprise crossed his face. Perhaps because she had caught him off guard, he suddenly seemed vulnerable and easily hurt, and she realized that he was not as old as she had first thought. The grave expression he usually wore made him look as old as Lord Akitsu, but he might not even be thirty.

After a brief pause, he said in a low voice, “When I was about your age, Teruhi's troops slaughtered my mother and father before my very eyes. The entire village was massacred, wiped out. Though wounded, I escaped and vowed that someday I would take revenge on the Children of Light. If I could kill them by tearing them limb from limb, I would gladly do it, but they're immortal. So I keep on fighting, hoping that the day will come when I can mete out suitable punishment. No matter how you may insist that the hands of that fool over there are clean, he's one of them. To ask that I stop hating them is to demand the impossible.”

Turning his back on her, he added simply, “You should know. You have the same history as I.”

Saya winced as she watched him leave.
He's right. We share the same
background,
she thought. Perhaps that was why his words always seemed to sting her.

Chihaya continued practicing halfheartedly, showing no sign of improvement. One day, Saya, unable to bear it any longer, turned to Lord Akitsu, who had come to watch, and said, “It's ridiculous to tell Chihaya to fight. It has never occurred to him to attack or wound someone. This whole business is foolish.”

“But he's doing quite well.” The one-eyed lord smiled and rubbed his chin as he watched the master and his pupil. “Lord Ibuki's patience is paying off.”

“What do you mean, ‘quite well'?” Saya said acidly.

“You want proof ?” The lord strung his bow with the swiftness of a seasoned archer. Then, drawing an arrow from the quiver on his back, he fit it to the bowstring. “Watch. Don't make a sound.”

Just as Chihaya sprang away from Lord Ibuki, the arrow flew whining through the air. Saya's breath caught in her throat, but in the same instant Chihaya nimbly dodged the arrow as if it were a bird in flight, and it whizzed past. After a slight pause, he looked toward them in surprise.

“You could have hit him!” Saya screamed. But Lord Akitsu shook his head.

“No. I knew he could dodge it. He must have acquired such instinct through his many experiences in animal form. That's why he can evade even Lord Ibuki's skilled sword arm despite being such a poor fighter. I wish I could have shown you the kind of agility he displayed when he possessed the stag.” Lord Akitsu smiled more grimly than before. “That youth conceals a power that neither he nor those around him comprehend. He's like the Dragon Sword.”

Saya, however, was so upset that his words did not reach her. She was furious that he had shot so casually at Chihaya.

“If that were your son, would you have shot at him without a second thought? Even if you were certain he could dodge the arrow?”

Lord Akitsu seemed surprised at the rage that shook her voice. “Are you trying to tell me that there was any danger of killing him? But he—”

“Cannot die, right? I know. It's obvious that to you Chihaya is merely a weapon of war that has conveniently fallen into your hands. You're no different from Lord Shinado. Maybe you're even worse.”

Unable to stand it any longer, she turned her back on him and ran away. She did not know why she had exploded, but once her anger was spent, she was overcome with a deep sadness.

Torihiko flew after her, flapping his wings. “Everyone's shocked. No one here would dare to criticize Lord Akitsu to his face.”

Without responding, Saya picked up her wooden sword from where it was leaning against the fence. She stared at it for a moment and then threw it to the ground with all her might. “I hate this! It would have been better if we had never come here.”

Torihiko, who had hastily escaped to the top of the fence, looked down at her in concern. “What a temper! What's the matter, Saya?”

“I don't want to go to war. And because of me, Chihaya will be caught up in it, too.”

“But he wanted to come.”

“It was my fault.”

“No,” Torihiko said, his black eyes glittering. “It was the Sword. We are all being made to dance by the Sword.”

5

ON THE DAY
the army was to march forth, Saya was surprised to see Natsume dressed like a warrior complete with armored breastplate. She no longer wore her hair up but instead had tied it in tight loops above her ears like the men.

“I have no intention of entrusting you to the care of a manservant. After all, it takes a woman to understand another woman's needs.”

“For me there's no choice,” Saya protested. “I must go to war. But there's no need for you to come, too. That would be crazy. Don't even think of it.” She was determined to dissuade her. Knowing that Natsume was with child, she could not bear to think of her involved in battle. “Stay here and defend what must be defended, just like you said you would.”

Natsume smiled, but it was the kind of smile that proclaimed she would not budge.

“I'll be fine. Please let me go with you. I'm only in my third month, and I can still move easily. If this baby can't take it, it isn't worthy to be our child.”

When Saya continued to protest, Natsume said frankly, “My lady, I wish to go for my own sake also. So that I can be with my husband. He's one of Lord Akitsu's guards.”

Questioning her more closely, Saya learned that Natsume's husband, Masaki, was a friendly young guard whom she had met sometimes on top off the cliff.

“We often talk about you, my lady.”

“That's not fair. You never told me. It never occurred to me that he was married,” Saya said, feigning disappointment. Natsume laughed delightedly.

Having combed her long hair, Saya followed Natsume's example and fastened it in loops, one on either side of her head. She then donned a pair of red trousers and tied each leg below the knee with a cord decked with silver bells. She alone was allowed to wear red, a sign that she was the one and only priestess of her people. Fastening a white headband around her forehead as a symbol of purity, she finished her preparations and, grasping the sheathed Dragon Sword in her hand, went to bid farewell to Lady Iwa, who was staying behind.

Lady Iwa sat motionless upon a mat in the middle of her stone chamber as though lost in meditation. The room seemed rather large and empty. When she noticed Saya, she raised her eyes and gazed at her red and white apparel. “You leave for war,” she said quietly, “but a warlike spirit does not become you. Never forget that. Do you have the Quelling Stone?”

“Quelling Stone? Oh, you mean Princess Sayura's magatama.” Saya nodded and pulled the sky blue stone from inside her collar, where it hung on a leather thong about her neck. “As you can see, I always wear it.”

“It is not Sayura's. That magatama belongs to you,” Lady Iwa said somewhat sternly. “You must carry it with you at all times, for it is part of the Water Maiden, part of you. Never having experienced its power, you can't be expected to understand, but you'll need it to quiet unruly spirits. It is the Water Maiden's ability to appease that makes her the Priestess. It is this same ability that gives her the power to still the Dragon Sword. And not only the Sword: she has the power to calm any god and call forth its peaceful spirit.”

Saya's eyes widened. “Is that really true?”

“Yes, but only if your own spirit remains unmoved,” Lady Iwa replied discouragingly. “War rouses and agitates wild spirits throughout the land. In the midst of battle, it's very hard for just one person to stay calm, something I'm sure you'll experience many times in the days to come.”

Saya reflected ruefully that she did not have much confidence in her ability in the first place, and that as for war, she was certainly not going by choice. If she could have stayed behind, she would gladly have crawled into bed and stayed put with the covers drawn over her head. “Lady Iwa,” she suddenly blurted out, “why do we have to fight? I still don't understand. Why? And why does Chihaya have to be thrown into battle?” She knew once she had begun that she was treading on dangerous ground, but having started, she could not stop. She continued in a small voice, “I know it's too late to say this. But Chihaya—Chihaya doesn't know how to say no. And so he'll be carried along and try to do what others want him to, to fight. And I—I can't bear that.”

Lady Iwa's large eyes gazing up at her were like two dark pools. No matter how hard one might try, one could never glimpse what lay at the bottom. But for a moment Saya thought she saw within them a glimmer of sympathy. The old woman answered slowly, “I belong to the people of Darkness. There's nothing I can do. I would do anything for the sake of my people regardless of the consequences. But . . .” She paused to consider, and then continued, “Someday you'll understand. Right now, we're caught up in the tide of history. If we don't follow the flow, we'll never learn where it leads.”