The Way of the Fox (29 page)

Tonbo jo
ined her in looking toward the trees.

There was a mound
swelling up amongst the underbrush – a great, long hummock of earth, far too symmetrical to be a random hill. Half buried pottery statuettes –
haniwa
– jutted from the soil: ancient sculptures set there centuries ago. It was clearly an ancient burial mound – a huge grave raised far back before the first emperors.

Interesting...

Sura remained kneeling in cover, eyes narrowed. She could see no traps, no tripwires… But there was something very wrong with the valley just ahead – the tangled bushes... the great, dark mound. The fox’s sixth sense prickled.

Tonbo looked carefully at the burial mound and the tangled brush just beyond. He flexed his armoured fists slowly about his club.

“Spirits?”

“We’ll see.”

Sura rose, thumped the butt of her spear against the ground and levelled it at the mound. She swept her stiffened fingers along the spear haft as power sparkled in her hands.

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

Let the hidden souls come forth.

Let ghosts appear to mortal eyes…”

Once again, a fan of warped, changed space seemed to ripple outwards from the point of Sura’s spear. She began to slowly scan the area across the trees ahead, making a few tiny flickers of light appear – elementals scuttling in the trees and soil. But there were no ghosts, no spirits – no sign of the forest being haunted. No ghosts lingering in the burial mound...

“Sura san!”

Chiri was kneeling in the bushes just below. She carefully retrieved a stained piece of fabric from underneath the rotting leaves.

A child’s robe
, pierced with holes and stiff with old black blood. Chiri looked up at Sura, utterly appalled.

Bifuuko suddenly came streaking from the branches
above, wings flashing bright in warning. An arrow flashed out of the bushes, heading straight for Sura. Tonbo hurtled himself straight into the missile’s path.

“
Sura!”

Tonbo span his tetsubo, cracking the arrow out of the air before it touched his armour.

Three figures camouflaged in coats and hoods made of dead leaves erupted from the ground nearby. All three nocked arrows, lifting their bows to fire. Chiri threw out her arms, power crackling and raising her hair in a sparkling, shimmering breeze.

“Little spirits of the wood! Come now to aid your friends!”

Wood slivers split away from the surrounding trees. The heavy darts flashed and whipped through the air, piercing the three archers like knives. The men whirled and fell, pierced through a dozen times – arrows falling from their hands. Sura looked to Chiri, utterly overjoyed.

“
Chiri! That’s fantastic!”

The rat
was wonderfully pleased. Suddenly she flicked a glance towards the burial mound, and dove aside. “Look out!”

More arrows flew – wild shots. One speared towards Chiri, only to have Bifuuko swat it out of the
air. Another glanced from Tonbo’s helm. An instant later, a dozen men burst from the brambles and raged towards the Spirit Hunters in a screaming charge. The Raiden samurai and his men from the pack horse detail: backed by a swarm of archers dressed in camouflage. The samurai flung his men into the attack.

“Kill them all!”

Chiri still had wood darts hovering in the trees. She trilled, and they came streaking through the leaves.

The
minute weapons smashed into the Raiden troops. A leaf-clad assassin fell. Wood darts ricocheted from the samurai’s armour, one sliver slicing through the mail on his arm. A foot soldier fell, blasted clean off his feet. The others cursed, shielding their faces as they raged through the woody storm. But they charged on, swords and naginatas bared. The magic faded, and the last darts fell spinning to the ground.

Leaping over ferns, her tail flying, Sura was only just behind the darts. The fox
hurtled a pepper egg, striking a Raiden soldier right in the face. She stabbed the distracted man with a ferocious thrust of her spear, then cut down the man behind him in a single savage blow. The next foot soldiers clashed with her blade to blade, and she drove a man back, meeting the soldier’s vicious naginata with her spear.

Tonbo cannoned into a
foot soldier, smashing the man off his feet. The force of the tetsubo blow shattered the Raiden’s ribcage, hurtling Tonbo’s victim back into one of the camouflaged huntsmen. Tonbo parried a swipe from a naginata, broke his new assailant’s arm with a whipping arc of his club, then crushed the man’s helmet as he staggered back. Surging forward, Tonbo crashed into the Raiden and hammered men down.

Chiri fought beside
Sura, natagama clashing wickedly with a huntsman’s flashing sword. Kuno strode past her, sword held in coolly confident hands. He headed straight towards the Raiden samurai, cutting down one of the camouflaged huntsmen as the man rushed at him with his sword. The samurai threw aside his sword sheath and slowed his rush, pausing to measure Kuno for an instant, before making a sudden furious attack.

Kuno met the
strike and glissed it aside, flicking forward in a lightning attack. His enemy somehow parried, the blade scoring the top of his helm, but he stumbled back as Kuno drove his blade into the man’s armoured throat. Choking, the samurai staggered – astonished at the pinpoint precision and force of the blow.

The
Raiden coughed, his throat almost crushed by the impact. Blood ran at his neck, and the man blinked, dazed. Blundering forward in a rage, he made a wild cut. Kuno coldly met the attack, flicking sideways away from the sword and slicing the man beneath his arm. Springing forward in an immaculate attack, Kuno crashed to his knees, the full weight of his body behind a leaping cut that sheared through his opponent’s armour. The Raiden samurai staggered back, already dead. Kuno leapt back onto his feet and turned to the rest of the melee. Daitanishi blurred past him, cracking into the head of a huntsman who had aimed a throwing knife at Tonbo’s back. Tonbo turned and killed the staggering huntsman with a single massive blow.

Sura fought a naginata-wielding
foot soldier with swift, flickering cunning. The blades flashed and countered, with the fox’s swishing tail and flowing robes swirling all about her. The foot soldier snarled, trying to slice first into her legs, then her neck, then her waist. The orange blade was always there, dancing and flickering. Quite suddenly Sura thrust past the man’s leading hand, and pulled back, cutting his wrist with her crossblade before delivering a lightning thrust into the man’s chest – clean through his armour. The man fell. Sura spun her spear and flicked into an elegant
en garde
, spear head behind her and one hand before her, looking for her next foe.

Six camouflaged huntsmen had plunged down
into the hollow. They had bows bent, and the arrows were aimed at Chiri and Sura. Kuno bellowed a warning, and tried to race towards the archers, his feet stumbling in the leaves.

A
rough man in leather-covered armour crashed out through the bushes behind the Raiden archers. He cut one man down with his sword, then sliced into another, sending the man reeling. The rest turned – arrows flying wildly, jutting through the wild man’s armour as he crashed in amongst them.

K
uno leapt onto the scene. He scythed down one of the archers, then hacked another man’s bow in two. Frantically battling the Raiden, the man in leather-covered armour fought two enemies at once, taking a slash across his armour but holding his own.

Kuno parried a blow, twisted forward in a blinding lunge and ran
his opponent through. He cut down another man and whirled around. Kuno saw the leather armoured man slice down his opponents, only to have his leg run-through by another man and knocked to the ground. Far out of Kuno’s reach, the Raiden archer reversed his sword, ready to plunge it clean through the fallen man.

A siz
able log – hurtled as a missile – smashed the archer aside. The man in leather-covered armour blinked in amazement. Tonbo came stalking over like a behemoth. As the fallen archer tried to hack at him with his sword, Tonbo slammed the man with his tetsubo in one massive, earth shaking blow that seemed capable of sending his target straight toward the earth’s core.

Silence fell.
To a man, the Raiden were all dead.

Chiri stood over her fallen opponent, looking coldly ferocious. Her long white hair glittered. She whipped her weapons clean and sheathed them carefully, then looked over to Sura, who was breathlessly scanning the trees.

“Sura san – are you unharmed?”

“What? Yes – yes....” The fox was making a swift inventory off her friends. “You?”

“I am well.”

“Tonbo?”

“Mmmmph.” An arrow jutted from his armour. The head had pierced an inch into his flesh. Tonbo tore out the arrow and ignored the wound. “Fine.”

Sura k
ept her eyes on the tree line. “Kuno?”

“Unharmed.”

“Mystery leather guy?”

“I am... I am
fine.” The man’s leg had been stabbed. He tried to rise, and failed. “I am not fine.”

His leg was
streaming blood – the wound seemed serious. Chiri immediately came at a run. She knelt beside the man, pulling out a flask of water to clean the wound.

“
Here. Hold still, friend samurai. We will bind it tight.”

Sura blew out
a sigh of relief. She picked her way past the bodies of the fallen Raiden, noting the deerskin clothing of the dead huntsmen. She stopped at the injured man in his leather-covered armour, and gave the man a bow.

“
Thank you, samurai san! I am Kitsune Sura, and I am in your debt.”

“Ah! You are welcome!” The man winced as Chiri carefully cleaned his injured thigh. “
I am Idē Benten. A ronin. When I saw you being attacked by those vermin, I knew I must assist you.”

Tonbo grunted. He knocked a b
ent, inverted helmet from the spikes of his tetsubo.

“
Thank you, Benten san. I am Tsunetomo Tonbo. This is Asodo Kuno and Nezumi Chiri.” He looked at the tangled bodies of the fallen soldiers. “You have been trailing the Raiden?”

“
I have – but to no avail. Their patrols are too numerous – too alert! They have assassins in the woods.” Benten breathed more easily as Chiri began to bind his wound. “This is as far as I can reach. I have tried time and time again to penetrate their defences. They have at least a hundred men patrolling these woods.”

The man looked at the fallen Raiden
in disgust.

“
Anyone who ventures here is instantly slain. Man, woman or child. Still, I persevere. Somebody must try.”

Kuno listened respectfully, deeply impressed by the man’s dedication and force of will.

“
Why do you try to track them, Benten san?”

Benten took a firm grip upon his sword.

“My father, General Idē Yagorō, was chief retainer to the Usagi. I still owe a duty to the people of this fief. I must know why the Raiden came here. I must know what is going on.”

Kuno bowed.

“I honour you for your dedication.”

Tonbo had climbed the old burial mound. He knelt
in the bushes, scanning the woods for trouble. Sura checked over the body of the dead Raiden samurai, then clambered up the slope to join Tonbo.

“Hey iron man. Want me to get you a bandage for that?”

“No.” Tonbo was not in the least bit concerned about his wound. “Someone may have heard the fight.”

“We should go?”

“We should go.”

Sura stood, jingling a
small coin purse in her hand then shoving it into her sleeve. “Hang on a second! I’ll just fix it all up..”

Sura dashed down amongst the bodies of the dead Raiden and clasped her hands together like an artist contemplating
blank paper. She then dragged a body about and set it with its hands locked about the throat of a comrade. Then she jammed a Raiden arrow into another corpse, using a hole left by one of Chiri’s vanished darts. Kuno stared at her, utterly appalled.

“Kitsune Sura – what are you doing?”

“Shhh! This will be great!” Sura set two dead Raiden to look as though each had killed the other with their sword. “There we go! That ought to get them off our trail! With any luck, they’ll launch an internal witch hunt by lunchtime!”

Asodo Kuno could
only blink.

“I am made uncomfortable by even imagining what it must be like inside your head.”

“Are you kidding? It’s great in here! Full wooden floors, majestic views of local landmarks!” The fox stood back to admire her handiwork, dusting off her hands. “Right! Benten san? Which direction do the patrols guard most heavily?”

“The river.” Benten arose, moving awkwardly on his injured leg. “
No one ever lives to see the river.”