Thousand Shrine Warrior (23 page)

Possibly the karma of a beast would have meant more to her had she not recalled full well the one previous occasion she had seen Shinto ceremonial ropes used as Raski used them. She raised her sword against him, her threatening pose slightly spoiled due to her intoxication.

“It was you who killed those nine men near the shrine!” she accused. “I have sworn to avenge them!”

She dashed forward, but the youth slunk backward, looking startled and abused.

“I am a serpent, after all!” he exclaimed. “I don't understand your anger!”

“Why not try to take my weapon with your rope!” she challenged. “Use my Sword of Okio against me as you used those men's swords to pin them to trees. A cruel way to kill!”

The hunter who had fled without his bow was riding back, accompanied by other men. They searched through the blizzard and among the trees for sign of the prey. An unforeseen shaft struck the serpent youth square in the back. If he could have avoided it, he did not try. The arrow's point burst out through his chest. He threw his head back as though to shout and collapse, but in a moment the look of pain passed from his face. He turned with his weird rope, sent it forth, snatching the mounted archer's sword from its sheath. The youth caught the sword and let his rope fall coiled upon the ground.

Turning to the nun, he said, “I have never learned human sentiment. For this reason my lives have been short, and I have descended from higher beasts to lower. I regret punishing those men in a manner you could not approve. I will do penance fighting these present samurai for you. I promise their pain will be slight. Then I will die with them, of this arrow through my heart. The stag is yours to ride across the river; he knows the proper ford. Please let me do this, for the sake of my future lives.”

The hunters were closing swiftly. The nun could still not think clearly. She turned her mind to thoughts of Shinji and Otane suffering on the cross, and away from such a thing as the fate of humanity and beasts. She hurried to the stag and mounted. He leapt away from the circle of danger. The bikuni looked back to see the serpent youth jumping among the swirling snowflakes. As a snake from its coil, he flung himself toward a mounted samurai, piercing first the horse, to its very heart, then slicing the rider as the horse went down.

He took another arrow from behind as he was doing this. He turned to face the next attacker, now revealing two arrows rather than one poking outward from his chest, dripping serpent's gore.

The strange, yellowish-white youth hissed, leapt again, and the bikuni could see no more.

What a mad, savage ride the stag supplied! With moon and stars immured beyond roiling clouds, and the very atmosphere whirling with snow, she had to trust the stag's senses. They sped through black woods and black night, outdistancing the one or two hunters who pursued. She did not see the river until she heard cloven hoofs splash the shallows. The river would not be swollen until spring. Though it was wide and cold and swift, the ford at least was no deeper than the stag's belly. The nun raised her feet to keep her tabi-socks dry. The red-eyed buck ploughed the rapids. The spray invigorated, but was insufficient to sober the nun.

In the next moment they were on a narrow, umbral path that could have led to the Land of Roots, for all the nun could judge. It was pitch dark. Naked branches were difficult to dodge as the snorting buck leapt and ran through the wild back acres of the properties of Lord Sato's vassals.

Only once did she become so much as slightly orientated. A samurai residence, poorly lit from within, came into view. She recognized it as Kahei Todawa's residence, in which he remained under house arrest. Then the nun could see no more. The buck leapt onto some other path, without a moment's slacking.

The rider could not control the mount. She dared not try, even had she known the means; for she did not know the route. She had faith in the stag's night vision and his knowledge of the narrow paths of beasts. But she did not suppose he comprehended where his rider wished to be taken. She could only cling to his neck and give herself over to chance and the Shinto gods.

She might have ridden in this manner for eternity. She had no sense of time. Exhilaration gave way to jaded detachment. She let go of the stag's neck, clung with legs alone, and began to pick carelessly at the bothersome splinter lodged in her left arm. She did not consider how the buck was unused to being straddled and might prove deadly passage.

His jewel eyes, loathing the sun, were fine orbs for the night. He saw a fallen cedar on the path ahead, its roots a tangle of bared claws. The nun had no precognition of the barrier. He leapt fantastically, powerfully, scarcely hindered by the weight upon his back. As the nun had been worrying at the splinter, she had no expectation of the leap. Her wine slowed brain sent messages of urgency to the wrong parts of her body. Her hand went foolishly to the hilt of her sword, responding only to a general sense of emergency.

As the stag struck the ground on the far side of the log, the nun was flung forward, nearly impaled on the antlers. The path turned sharply. The stag veered, unsettling a startled rider and leaving her upon the path.

She lay winded, having actually managed to draw the sword full length before hitting the ground. Snow spun around her face. She stood and bumbled about like a temple-clown feigning a bump to the head, amusing the novices and visiting children. Realizing how idiotic it had been to draw steel instead of grabbing the beast's neck for steadiness, she could only curse her state of intemperance. Sheathing her sword, she listened to the fading sound of the stag's pounding hoofs.

As it turned out, she was not long lost. When she stumbled from the animal paths onto a real road, she immediately saw the bridge that joined samurai estates with the peasant village. There were men posted at the bridgehouse. Pulling herself into a sober-seeming posture, she approached the guards and addressed them gruffly. She showed them Lord Sato's sealed warrant, Sato's signature on the outside.

They let her pass. She crossed the bridge casually. The snowfall had gained surprising momentum. Wind stirred snow upon the ground. When she was across the bridge and certain the guards could not see her through the thickening flurries, she gave up her nonchalance and took to her heels, passing the length of the village and heading for the light of campfires in a bamboo enclosure.

Outside the fence sat foolish Iyo and his grandmother the widow Todawa. They were still praying for the salvation of Shinji and Otane, in this life or the next. They were mainly ignored by the guards, who might hide their discomfort regarding a family's sadness and destruction.

The swift approach of the nun caused several men to gather at the gate of the enclosure. They had half expected a meddler, since so many guards had been posted at the execution site. They were prepared to thwart any effort to free the pitiable lovers from the cruciform.

But the martial nun fell passively to her knees and held forth a letter with Lord Sato's signature thereon. The chief duty guard received the letter, bowed to the seal before breaking it, unfolded the paper lengthwise before his eyes, and read it carefully. He then let go of one side of the letter and asked, “What's this?”

“Their release warrant!” said the bikuni.

Widow Todawa, forever disguising the least emotion, for once let slip a startled sigh. Her moment of hope was quashed when the samurai replied,

“I don't think so.”

He dropped the missive. The nun snatched it before the whistling wind carried it away. She read the words herself, snow whirling about her. Her face was suddenly drained of blood. Lord Sato had written:
Save Princess Echiko. Save me.

So his chained intellect had reached out to seek salvation from the first holy pilgrim to gain access to the castle after Priest Kuro's arrival. But how could his plea save Otane and Shinji now? It could not. The nun was too dumbfounded to feel anger or sorrow.

The chief vassal motioned several men to action. The old widow and her retarded grandson were kicked and shoved aside, minor abuse intended to save their lives. Steel was drawn at all quarters. The nun was still upon her knees, holding the useless missive in disbelief. When steel licked forth murderously, she rolled to one side, let the wind take the missive, drew her sword, and cut her attacker's leg so that it came loose below the knee.

A second samurai moved forward as the nun somersaulted backward, coming to her feet, gutting her attacker from her crouch. Then she stood—slowly. She was transformed into a frightening presence, face still ashen with disappointment, but her expression firm and resolved.

She acted from instinct. She did not think about the deeds or the skills that came into play. Her sword angled left; it angled right. Two men fell. She pressed forward but was blocked from the enclosure. Too many men had gathered there. She began to run along the perimeter of the fence, pursuers on her heels, another guard waiting for her up ahead, his spear held in readiness. She closed upon him. Her sword took him so quickly, he was dead without knowing the nature of the cut that had been his undoing. His spear lay beside him in two pieces.

Two of her pursuers caught up. She turned, cut both of them with a single horizontal slice. Then she cut twice at the fence and pressed it with her shoulder.

She was within.

She ran toward a fire. The blizzard had risen with frightful intensity; she could not immediately locate the cross. She was nearly upon it before she saw Otane's dark hair sweeping the ground, her inverted body spread-eagle on the cruciform, Shinji on the other side bound identically.

“Otane!” the nun cried above the storm as another samurai dropped before her blade. “Shinji! Otane! Brace up!”

The world was doubly blurred by her drunkenness combined with the heavy flurries. She leapt over a bonfire, cutting down the man on the other side, then danced awkwardly to one side, killing another. She reeled, spun, slew. Blood sprayed her face. Her costume was of cream and charcoal and crimson. The long sleeves of her kimono turned and twisted in the gale, making her seem an enormous crow flapping and slaying and hopping about.

Her sword arced toward the cross. The rope binding Shinji's left and Otane's right arms fell away. Shinji tried to untie one of the other ropes with his freed hand. He was as sick and weary as Otane, and could only pick uselessly at a knot.

Slice
—a man fell.

Slice
—another rope fell from the cruciform. Shinji and Otane hung by one arm and one leg apiece, still too helpless to do anything for themselves.

Slice
—spray—death.

Slice. Slice.
Now their arms were free. Then the rope around Shinji's left and Otane's right ankles fell away. The couple plunged headfirst onto the snow, heaped upon each other, moaning and crying out with uncertainty. They wept and clung to each other, but were too weak and ill to stand, to run, to do anything but hold onto one another as the nun hovered above them, slaying whoever dared approach.

What a monster she appeared! Her left arm was bloodied from the arrow's splinter taken earlier. Now she was further painted by the blood of others. Her hair was a horrible tangle plastered to the sides of her head. The incongruity of a trace of beauty only made her maniacal, drunken rage the weirder.

Samurai stood on all sides. Spears and swords pointed at her with avid intent; but for the moment, the men were unsure of themselves, reluctant to press the attack.

“Watch out for her!” one shouted.

“Not a human being!” another said, stumbling backward over the corpse of some friend. To hear their voices, to see their frightened faces, made her feel empathy for their plight. Yet, what could she do if they would not give up?

“Look at her eyes!” another said.

Someone added sharply, “Aren't they shining green?”

Surely it was the bonfire that caused the gleam in her eyes. But why would they have thought they reflected greenly? Hadn't she seen a green glint in the eyes of Kuro the Darkness? Her mind was too fogged to consider it. She was possessed of wine, not monsters. Her efforts were chivalrous though grotesque. She held her preparedness and could dwell on nothing but the defense of Shinji and Otane. Hadn't they been persecuted? What matter so many lives exchanged for two, if those two alone had meant no harm!

Someone emboldened himself to the attack and perished at once. Then the nun moved toward a trio of men, who gave up ground. Others came from behind to try to get at Shinji and Otane, to kill them or reclaim them as prisoners, probably even those samurai did not know which. The nun returned like a mad beast protecting its litter of young. Two more men were downed.

Such carnage she wrought! Rapid snowfall hid the blood, provided shrouds for the slain. The deed was hidden even from herself, as she multiplied its effect.

Otane and Shinji braced each other and clawed at one of the diagonally crossed beams of the cruciform. They found their uneasy, tortured legs. The nun cleft her way through the ranks of insistent samurai. She led her wards in the direction of the exit. Not one samurai was left standing inside the enclosure by the time the gate was obtained.

A few guards remained outside, waiting fearfully, their spears and swords not as steady as before.

Still bracing one another, Otane and Shinji followed in the wake of slaughter, trying not to witness the number of lives reaped in their behalf. Outside the punishment-enclosure, standing above two freshly slain, the nun and her wards nearly fell over the large retarded youth and old widow Todawa, who were still praying in the snow.

“Tah—neh!” shouted Iyo, his flabby features twisted upward with a combination of confusion and glee. His knees were all but frozen to the ground from the long hours of prayer with his grandmother. He tried to stand to hug his sister, but could barely move, seemed not to know why his legs were stuck. Beside him, his weary grandmother gazed upward at the bikuni. Her eyes were worshipful. In her kneeling posture, she mumbled a prayer of thanksgiving, rubbing her palms in the direction of the bikuni, as though to a Buddha.