The Way of the Fox (23 page)

“We need to find a village. That was the last of the rice.”

“What – we’re out of food again?” Sura made a face
of astonishment. “How does that even happen?”

“I wonder
...” Kuno eyed the fox. “In any case – there will surely be villages along the road.”

“Ah
...” Sura cleared her throat. “Well, we
may
just happen to be a little bit short of funds…”

Kuno turned and met S
ura with a level gaze.

“Kitsune Sura. You were given
three koku by Magistrate Masura only a month ago.”

“
Hey – this is not my fault! We had to get Kuno’s armour re-lacquered, re-laced, and a whole new shoulder thingie! That cost two whole koku! Lacquer doesn’t grow on trees, you know!”

Chiri raised a finger. “Ah – well actually…”

“And there were road tolls, bridge tolls, gate tolls! Replacement sandals – and a proper quilt for Chiri…!”

Tonbo led the way off down the road. “She lost
the rest of it on a horse.”

“Hey – we were down to
three silvers! I was trying to reverse our fortunes!”

Sura pranced along at
Tonbo’s side in protest. “That damned nag was supposed to be a total dead certainty! Five to one odds! How was I to know the damned thing was going to take a spill on the first turn? How does a horse even
manage
to fall down?” The fox still couldn’t believe her foul luck. “Tonbo – back me up on this! We should have ended up swimming in cash!”

Chiri – a very sensible rat – heaved a sigh. Fate was fate. “In any case, Sura san – it seems wisest if the party
funds remain in Tonbo’s keeping for a while.”

The fox hooked her arms over her spear, grumbling as she stamped her way along the road. “Well this whole horse thing would never have happened if
you had just loaned me an elemental spirit or two to spook the competition...”

“
Sura! Surely you are not suggesting that I engage in cheating?”

“
No! No no no no no no. You? Never!” The fox wavered. “Just Daitanishi! He loves that kind of stuff.”

The rock nodded in agreement. Chiri slipped the elemental a considering glance.

“Daitanishi – I believe Sura san may have been unduly influencing you.” She held out a finger, and the rock landed upon her hand, much chagrined. “Sura san is frequently far more of a fox than is strictly necessary.”

The fox gave a sigh. No funds – no rations....
Still – it was no great disaster! Sura felt untroubled, certain that something would soon turn up. It was spring, and the countryside abounded with birds, hares, meadow voles and all kinds of incautious creatures she could convert into one of her famous ‘hot pots’. And even if her ‘snail sukiyaki’ had proved rather less than successful, she had great hopes that the recipe could be salvaged and refined. And so the fox took the lead upon the little country lane, wandering happily onwards in the sunshine. Her tail waved and her red hair shimmered in the light. It was an utterly beautiful day. She sang as she walked along, perfectly happy with her world.

“With mismatched sandals on my feet,

I walk the road with joyous heart!

Not burdened down by future fears,

Nor burdened down by woes long past.

A cool spring breeze shall be my fan,

Spring flowers glitter in my train.

I loose my hair and I go singing
,

To the four frontiers men join in my refrain…!”

They walked for
hours, all through the morning – on, on towards the mountains. They were supposedly in a feudal fief, and yet the usual little manor houses and villages seemed to have vanished. There were flat areas that might once have been fields, but they were overgrown, with trees and saplings now standing high above the weeds. A ruined village beside the road was now nothing but a great tangle of bramble vines.

The path finally met a little roadway –
one that at least showed a few ruts from cart wheels and marks from passing hooves. To the north east, the road ran far off across rivers, towns and valleys, off towards Ayamejo. To the west, there rose a range of soaring, snow-capped mountains. Sura unhesitatingly headed off towards the mountains, on into a strange, deserted landscape. Her eyes now kept a sharper watch upon the shadows.

Tonbo moved
up to walk beside her. His keen eyes missed nothing, flicking to look quietly at the weeds, the empty fields, the trees. With spear and tetsubo across their shoulders side-by-side, they paused at a rise in the road and looked off into the gloom.

Chiri and Kuno joined them. The four friends stood and considered the mountains up ahead. A great,
black forest stretched before them, the treetops looming dark and still. Dense brambles grew in a tangled mass beside the road. The entire countryside seemed far too quiet.

Chiri listened c
arefully to the sounds. Her pink eyes scanned carefully at the trees.

“Is something there?”

“I’m not sure…” Sura considered the scene. She swung her spear down from her shoulder
and removed the sheath that covered the orange blade. “We seem to be a little short on inhabitants…”

Tonbo pulled on his helmet and tied the chin cords. He led the way off along the road, the others moving quietly in his wake.

They walked on into the forest, with the roadway threading between the tallest, oldest trees. Forest flowers peeked out from the gloom: here and there, a spider’s web glimmered in the shadows. Bees droned softly. The place was by no means dead – and yet there was a strange feeling, as though something were moving just out of sight – watchful, ever watchful, and filled with anger…

They
moved carefully down the road. There was no halt for a midday meal. Sura did not sing her usual songs, nor tell merry stories. She looked carefully about herself as she marched, just vaguely worried by what might be lurking in the wings.

The road passed through the middle of another deserted village: a place of old fallen buildings, well overgrown. A few ruts in the road showed that traffic still passed this way, but the ruins were all but silent. A single stray dog fled out of their path and off into the underbrush as they approached.
Chiri pulled her robes about her shoulders, and gave a shiver.

The group march
ed onwards past more overgrown old farms. Finally the road dipped down amongst dark, still trees. The air around them filled with the smell of mouldering leaves.

A long dip took the travellers down into a great, narrow valley.
The footing became wet and dank. There were standing puddles in amongst the bramble bushes. Sura’s stomach growled, echoing loudly in the woods. She gave a sigh and looked off into the distance – then heard the sound of a stream somewhere up ahead. The fox immediately brightened.

“
Aah! A stream! Chiri has good luck with streams. Hey – maybe we can forage for some lunch!”

Kuno looked along the road. “You want to stop here and fish?”

“We can forage in the boggy bits! Oooh – I can do my frog yakitori!”

“Oh Buddha, no!” Kuno
raced to overtake the fox. “Some burdock or watercress will suffice.”

A broad
river cut through the forest – a river with wide banks made of rock and gravel. Thick bushes grew in tangled thickets near the water. Spear in hand, Sura threaded her way down past the brambles and onto the rocks. The water splashed loudly at her feet. She spied some silvery shapes in the water, and called eagerly back towards her friends.

“Hey! There’s fish here!
Oooh – the Tao provides!” Hiking up her hakama, the fox teetered her way across the rocks towards a spit of gravel. “Get a thingie! We can scoop them up into a hat!”

“Sura! Don’t touch those.”

Tonbo had come forward. He clanked his way over the rocks, splashing through the shallows. Sura had already knelt down beside the water, where she was poking at a long silver fish with a stick.

The fish was floating upside down, twitching
spasmodically. Sura gave the thing another poke or two, looking rather pained.

“
Well
that’s
not good.”

Tonbo took
the stick out of her hands. The fox was quite capable of scooping up diseased fish and trying to cook them: food poisoning cases across three provinces could attest to her lack of culinary judgement. Tonbo carefully rolled the fish over, then looked at two more that lay belly up further down the shore.

Chiri frowned. She came down to the waterside with her elementals floating beside her.
The rat spirit crouched down beside the water and extended her delicate pink hand above the river

From far downstream, a little silver ripple arrowed along beneath the current. With a surge and bubble, out from the stream there arose a strange little creature all made from water – something part long-necked salamander, and part eel. It lifted its neck out of the water and came nose-to-nose with Chiri, fluttering its little
silver fins.

There was a whispered conversation between them – all spoken
partly in words, partly in the sounds of a flowing stream. Chiri talked back and forth with the water elemental for long minutes, then bowed to the creature in farewell. It disappeared, swimming away downstream. Chiri arose and approached her friends, looking quite concerned.

“The water kami warns us not to eat the fish here
. They are ill.” She turned to look upstream, feeling puzzled. “He says that there is poison in the water. Men put it there...”

Sura
brushed her hands off and backed away from the fish. She joined Chiri in looking upstream, towards the dark heart of the forest.

“Let’s postpone lunch.”

“I agree, Sura san.”

They walked on.

The pathway led around and away from the stream – up to a wooded rise, where an ancient statue of the first emperor stood beside the path. There were rabbits carved sitting at his feet. Sura bobbed down to inspect the carvings – blurred by long centuries of wind and rain – interested in the details. She caressed the rabbits, patted the first emperor upon the head, and then arose again to carefully move off along the road. Tonbo came behind her, tetsubo ready to smite anything that stirred his suspicions. Kuno and Chiri brought up the rear, their eyes and ears now alert to every little sound.

Bird
s scattered up into the trees. Here and there, a grasshopper leapt away into the shrubbery. The Spirit Hunters followed the road as it sloped back towards the river – down past a cluster of burned houses, all long overgrown and gone.

They came
at last to a clearing by a deep, wide gulley, where an old bridge curled up and over the rushing stream. A crow sat upon the bridge, stropping its beak and ruffling its feathers. From the weeds nearby, there came a faint glimmer of old stones.

A great rock stood in the middle of the clearing. A prayer rope had been tied about it – a new straw rope, still bright. Prayer papers dangled from the rope. A plain wooden shingle held offerings – rice, pickles and abalone.
Somewhat recent, they were none too fresh – otherwise the crow would already have gobbled them down.

The wind was stilled by the trees. But the strange
old stones in the nearby weeds suddenly had a horrifying shape. They were skulls – all tangled in with weeds and bones. The eye sockets were filled with growing moss. Chiri suppressed a shiver, and dropped her hands to the natagama at her belt.

Tonbo moved warily to scan the surrounding area for tracks or lurking ambush. His eyes never moved away from the rocks and trees.

“Offerings. Someone wants to placate a spirit.”

“Let’s see what we find.”

Sura flicked back her sleeves. She thumped the butt of her spear against the ground twice, and then raised it vertically up one-handed before her. Her other hand lifted in a gesture at her forehead. Her long red pony tail lifted and stirred as a glowing breeze arose to slowly coil itself about her.

“One Tao, one sight, one world, one mind.

Let the hidden souls come forth.

Let ghosts appear to mortal eyes…”

Sura swept her fingers out along the spear haft. The weird swirl of light flowed up into her spear. Sura levelled the weapon and turned slowly about, scanning the spear point out before her. In a fan in front of her, the world seemed to twist and warp. There was a slight hint of elemental spirits in the trees – a few moving in the soil, all revealed by the spell. But as she walked a circle and made a careful search, nothing else revealed itself – no ghosts, no evil spirits, no twists of horrifying evil lurking there amongst the bones. The spell finally flickered and faded out, and Sura gave a short little huff of irritation.

“Well
, there’s no spirit here.” The fox squinted, looking off along the river. “There’s the smell of one though. Somewhere around… very faint.”