World's Edge (31 page)

On the evening of the sixth day, the summons came. Moriko suppressed her fear. She had been rehearsing for this moment for a long time. They were to come to His campfire when the moon was high.

As the sun began to set, Moriko joined the Red Hawks for their evening meal. They all gathered around a campfire and ate as the men and women told stories. Moriko still didn’t understand a word they were saying, but she did understand the look of contentment on the faces of everyone around her. It seemed such a striking contrast to the reason she was here. This was home for these people, and they had shared it with her. She was grateful.

The sun went down and the moon started to rise. As it approached its zenith, Dorjee came to her and escorted her further forward along the column. Almost immediately, Moriko noticed a difference in the camps as she went deeper in. Other clans were not as content as the Red Hawks. Many clans sat around cooking fires silently, and Moriko sensed a deep tension among the people. The closer they got to their destination, the greater the difference seemed to be.

Dorjee confirmed her suspicions. “Be aware, there is much tension among the People. My clan is happy, but we have distanced ourselves from the events that surround us. There is no love lost between my clan and the demon-kind. Walk gently for both of us.”

Moriko nodded.

It wasn’t hard to pick out their destination. The fire there burned much larger than anywhere else in camp, and Moriko glanced away to keep up some of her night vision. There was a large circle gathered there, all men. Moriko wondered momentarily if it had been a mistake to send her instead of Ryuu. The Azarians were less patriarchal than the Three Kingdoms, but it was still clear men ruled here.

She pushed the thoughts aside as they entered the circle. Moriko glanced around as she became the center of attention. Before her arrival, quiet conversation had filtered through the night, but now many silent eyes were on her. She took in all the information she could. The men here were all very strong, and she saw everyone’s body was covered with the scars that signified a life full of battle. But here they all wore the tooth. She was surrounded by hunters. There were more of them than she could have imagined.

Moriko didn’t have any difficulty identifying the leader. He sat on a low bench, the same as any other man, but there was something about him. He drew power into himself, and Moriko could sense him much more strongly than any of the other men in the circle. She had never felt such strength. Even the Abbot of Perseverance would have quailed under this power. There was no doubt he was the leader, and her suspicion was confirmed when Dorjee addressed him, in Moriko’s language for her benefit.

“My Lord, I bring one who would see you.”

The leader looked at both of them and replied in the same language. “Dorjee, why do you bring a woman into my circle. If I wanted a whore, I would have taken one of your wives!”

Moriko could sense the tension building in the Red Hawk chief, but he suppressed it as the hunters around them laughed. “You have summoned her, my Lord, and she has come. She is a warrior from the kingdoms above.”

The man stood up and laughed. “She may be a warrior by your standards, but to use the word in this circle is a disgrace. I should have your head.”

Dorjee bowed low. “I do as you request, my Lord.”

It pained Moriko to see such a great leader humbled before a bully, but the leader’s attention was now on her.

“So you are the one I sent my men to kill. I don’t see how they failed. The one you travel with must be very strong.”

Moriko suppressed her anger. She found the cold steel inside her and embraced it. She looked directly at the leader and said nothing.

The challenge was clear, and the leader nodded his appreciation. “Dorjee says you are a messenger, so what is your message?”

Moriko had lived with the lie so long, it rolled smoothly off her tongue. “My Lord wishes for peace between our great kingdoms and asks for your intentions.”

The man laughed again, and Moriko could see on his face the incredible disdain he had for the Southern Kingdom and for her. “It figures they would send a woman. They are tired of their men dying under our blades!”

There was another round of laughter after the comment, but Moriko felt nothing. She studied the leader. Something about him wasn’t right. She didn’t sense him in quite the same way she sensed everyone else. He stepped forward, and his grace and strength were apparent.

“You ask what my intentions are? My intentions are simple. I am going to conquer your lands and make all of you slaves. You are weak and you disgust me.”

Moriko felt like she needed to retort before this became a campaign speech. “There is much strength in the Southern Kingdom, and if you attack, all Three Kingdoms will join against you.”

The leader waved his hand dismissively. “You were once a strong people, many, many cycles ago. But no more. You have hunted and killed all your strongest warriors, and now your lands are weak, filled with people who have no concept of the power they can’t access anymore. Any society that makes its strongest warriors its greatest enemy deserves death at my hands.”

Moriko understood with a start the man was talking about the nightblades. The Azarians knew that all the nightblades in the Three Kingdoms had been killed. The next connection was obvious. They had to have spies in the Three Kingdoms. This had been planned.

“Who are you?”

The leader glared at her. “I am nameless, like all my brethren. Our identity is unimportant. What is important is our will to serve the People.”

The silence felt ominous. “Is that to be your message to my Lord then?”

Nameless gave her an icy stare. “I think your body on a stake at the front of our column will be enough message.” He raised his voice so that all could hear. “Tomorrow there shall be an execution!”

Moriko’s blood went cold as the cheers went up all around her.

Chapter 24

Ryuu had been on the island for far longer than he’d planned. It had been foolish to think he could make the trip as quickly as he had first believed. He could spend his entire life here learning more about the sense and the powers it granted.

He was angry. Angry at Tenchi and Shika for their politics, angry at fate for always threatening to take away everything he loved. His only desire from the day he’d killed Orochi had been to live in peace, to be undisturbed. He ached for the beauty of a day spent in the garden, pulling weeds. It shouldn’t be this hard. He was falling in love with the island just as it seemed to be falling apart.

Every day he spent here, he wanted to spend another. It pained him that politics were slowly ripping the island in two, but there was so much here that he loved. More than anything, he felt comfortable here. He felt like this was a place where he could find peace. It made it that much more difficult when his dreams were shattered by hunters and politics.

Ryuu had never considered how much tension he and Moriko lived under every day in the Three Kingdoms. He would have said most of their days were normal, but here on the island he realized how wrong he had been. In the Three Kingdoms there was always the knowledge pressing on their thoughts, that if they were to be themselves, to show their skills and talents in public, they would be hunted like criminals. Ryuu hadn’t spent much time being hunted in his life, but the knowledge had always been there, an undercurrent of fear that scarred every daily action.

He hadn’t realized it until he came here. On the island, he was a nightblade, and nobody cared. He couldn’t get over how beautiful that lack of fear could be.

Beyond that, he was in a position where he was respected. He wasn’t sure he was as important to the island as Tenchi believed, but he did feel like he was somebody here. He was now the top swordsman he knew of. Every day he was under the personal tutelage of Tenchi, the most knowledgeable man on the island. He didn’t let his position get to his head, but he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pride at what he had accomplished. If Moriko were here, he thought they could throw off all the concerns of the world.

And all of it was being destroyed by the events to the south. Every night after training was over, he returned to his hut and continued his training alone. He practiced flowing into the sense, increasing the power and speed of every strike. After he was physically exhausted he trained mentally, extending his sense throughout the Three Kingdoms. His progress was slow, but continual.

Ryuu could sense the Three Kingdoms at war. He felt the Northern Kingdom, massing its armies against the borders, prepared for whatever might happen next. He could sense the Southern Kingdom driven backwards a step at a time and knew that unless something changed, the Southern Kingdom wouldn’t last the summer. Then he pushed further south, into Azaria, to check on Moriko. She was still among the Azarians, in the heart of it all, but now they were moving north, all of them. She was indistinct among the masses - only Ryuu’s familiarity with her allowed him to sense her at all. From what he could sense, she was fine, but worry gnawed away at his confidence.

After checking on the war and on Moriko, Ryuu laid awake and considered all the developments until he fell asleep. He thought about Tenchi’s proposal and his anger grew. The old man had no right to ask him to assassinate another nightblade. Yes, there were thousands on the island, but in Ryuu’s mind, they were still in danger, and he didn’t want to kill another nightblade if he could help it. He’d rather not kill at all.

But there was always another voice in his head, a voice Ryuu had come to recognize as Shigeru’s. It was the voice telling him to think through all the angles, to think about what it meant to have the power and strength of a nightblade. It was a small and persistent voice that told him he had a responsibility to the Three Kingdoms, that all the blades did, whether the Three Kingdoms accepted them or not. Ryuu hated that voice, but he couldn’t rid himself of it either.

And so most nights Ryuu passed out from exhaustion, angry and undecided.

For Ryuu, the night started like any other. His day had been full of training and he practiced on his own in the evening. He settled down to meditate and expand his sense, filling his mind with all the information it could handle. He moved through the armies and events of the Three Kingdoms easily and focused on Moriko. It was her world that interested him most. He worried about her every day, though he knew she was capable of defending herself.

His mind searched for her, struggling to identify her in the sea of people she was surrounded by. She was closer to the center of the mass than she had ever been before. After sensing her every night, he understood something different was happening. He focused his attention, trying to pick out more details, sweat forming on his brow.

Here he was at his limit. Tenchi told him with practice he’d be able to resolve the sense down to an individual level, but tonight he couldn’t do any more than focus on groups. The only reason he could find Moriko was because he was so used to her presence. Sweat dripped as he tried to use brute force to no effect. He lost the trance-like state necessary to maintain the contact with the sense. Ryuu cursed. He had the feeling that something was happening, but he didn’t know what.

Ryuu stood up and stretched his tired limbs. He’d try again, but he wanted to be in the best shape possible. He stretched in various angles, paying particular attention to the parts of his body that were especially tight. Then he drank some water and sat back down.

Again his mind rode upon the streams of the sense that ran throughout the world. He flew south, moving as fast as he was comfortable. Now that he knew where to look, finding Moriko didn’t take as much time as it had on his first attempt of the evening. He stayed calm and searched for details about Moriko’s surroundings.

She was surrounded by thousands of people. Beyond that, there wasn’t much that Ryuu felt he could discern. He kept a calm focus, trying to discover something, anything that would give him a clue what Moriko was up to. A little knowledge was worse than complete ignorance.

As he watched, he felt the presence of another, strong beyond belief. Ryuu tried to focus on the energy, but his skills weren’t sufficient. Wherever Moriko had found herself, she was facing someone of incredible power. The source of power was greater than that of the Abbot of Perseverance, greater even than Tenchi. A hint of fear flirted across Ryuu’s mind. If Moriko was up against that, she didn’t have a chance. He wouldn’t have a chance against that kind of power.

Ryuu held the connection as long as he could, long enough to sense Moriko being taken away from the source of power. In a moment of clarity, he sensed that she was bound, half dragged, half carried to a tent in the camp. The clarity faded and Ryuu was left with the vague impression of Moriko moving through the camp.

Ryuu broke away from the sense. He knew enough. Moriko was in danger, critical danger. He was a world away from her, but there wasn’t anything that would stop him. He stood up, only to find his legs wouldn’t support him. Sensing at that distance for so long had taken more out of him than he realized. He tried to stand again, only to fall to the ground, passed out.

Ryuu woke up to Rei standing over him, a concerned look on her otherwise happy face. He tried to grin it off, but there wasn’t any fooling her.

“What’s wrong?”

Ryuu sat up. He glanced outside, and from the shadows, he saw he had slept past mid-day. He wondered how long she had been by his side.

“It’s Moriko. She’s scouting the Kingdom south of the Three Kingdoms and is in danger. I’m worried for her.”

Rei raised an eyebrow. “What is she doing in Azaria?”

Ryuu glanced at her and debated his options. He liked Rei a lot, but he still didn’t know who to trust on this island. “It’s a long story. Do you know where Tenchi is?”