Chapter Thirty-Nine Kai
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Kai
Midwinter
Kai slammed her fist on the table, shouting just like the others. It was no use. With news of the Musha’in, Akiyo, gathering her forces at the edge of Yamano province to their northeast, they were trapped here, within the twin temples of the Onji banks, whether they liked it or not.
The town of Oda, they heard, was the first to fall. Paddies flooded, the small-temple burned. Akiyo’s mountain-wolves had made their mark. Even Tokuon’s retainers were attacked – his muster at Kiseda had not gone unnoticed.
Still, Kai argued. They’ll come. They will come. But when? That was the question none could answer. The Keishi would be on them in a matter of days – whether from the east, or west, or both together. They had no choice but to prepare for a siege.
Reports claimed a sharp-eyed Keishi general named Kaga Makoto had called his vassals to the north; they were gaining power every day. The Mountain monks, led by Ryaku’in, had ceased their infighting and now turned their arms in favor of the royal city. Ryaku’in, she thought. Curse him.
“Even with the support of our other temples, we’ll have perhaps a thousand fighters,” the wizened abbot said. The prayer hall loomed around them. “The Keishi will raise ten times our number.”
Several monks murmured in agreement. Some wanted to flee south, to the old city of Naruji. There, many had answered Nioh’s call to arms. Some wanted to chance it on the field.
Yet Akiyo waited east of the river. Others argued: They will catch us from behind.
“Then we’ll have to be faster than them,” said Yora. “And if they do, we’ll stand our ground until Tokuon can get to us.”
The abbot asked: “Will he come?”
Yora nodded. “He’s on the east road, gathering the armies outside Kiseda. He’s wanted this for years. He’ll come.”
Nioh sighed; he had no good hope for the coming days. “We’ll have to find a way to survive until he does.”
“Getoh will find them,” Yora said. “He’ll deliver our message. They’ll come.”
On the second morning, word came from the capital: the Keishi demanded surrender of the rebel prince and his followers.
Refusal would be met with death. “Kill a prince,” Nioh fumed.
“Kill a member of the imperial family – that is what he wants to do.” His son, Noyori, pale and trying not to tremble, watched from a nook by the wall.
Keishi forces demanded that the Onji temples cast out the fleeing prince, but the river monks were no friends of Ryaku’in – nor the Keishi – and refused. The messenger fled under a barrage of arrows.
Nioh sent his fastest riders to the temples of Naruji, the Window Retreat and the Temple of Equilibrium, asking for help. They had long been loyal to the mirror prince and his father, and, like the Mountain, had armed fighters of their own.
The messenger did not return. Day turned to night. Kai’s fear – and the strange pressure in her chest – rose to aching. She had a vivid image of the moment Hayo fell, pierced by arrows. The smell of blood mixed with snow. She turned to the bushes and retched.
Betrayer. Outcast. Exile. That’s what I will always be, in their eyes. The spawn of a traitor, never to be trusted. Never to be given what is mine.
Now, she thought, the flutes and lyres have gone quiet.
Now the festivals will go unplanned. Spring will come, and with it, flowers, the bloom of fleeting life, but none will be there to see them.
Instead of music, you’ll hear the thrumming of horses on hard dirt.
Instead of painting, you’ll see the vibrancy of blood.
The bells would ring not for the coming of another year, but in mourning, for the dead.
The Temple of the Three Wells and the Temple of the Far Earth lay on either side of the bridge at the mouth of the Onji River, less than a day from where it met the Great Awa Sea.
The Three Wells sat on the west side, closer to the capital; the Far Earth on the east, with its wide buildings, prayer halls, gardens, and dormitories.
Once the fighting started, Yora planned to withdraw across the bridge and make a stand at the Far Earth, with its walled enclosure and its golden hall, surrounded by an artificial lake like a moat.
He planned to hold the river as long as possible to give the prince time to escape, fleeing through the village, and from there, to a foothill road that led east, toward the river tributaries.
The bridge made a natural bottleneck; that was their only advantage.
“We pull the planks,” he said. “Strip the middle, so none can pass. It’s the only way we’ll hold out long enough for Tokuon to come.
“From now on, we stay in groups. Nioh and his bannermen. Getoh’s household, who joined us at the prince’s estate, and the river monks will divide themselves into units. No one walks alone.”
She found Yora later, in the temple courtyard, chopping wood for the barricades in bound, pleated pants and a simple dye-checked shirt like a farmer.
Sitting beside him, breath misting in the chill, she listened to the chock, chock sound of the axe, that seemed to bring him focus.
Wind brought fog in from the banks as he worked.
“You asked me, once,” he said after a moment, “what really happened with your father and Seikiyo. You asked what changed things, what we did.”
“You never answered.”
Yora paused the methodical thump of his axe. “How old were you then? Nine? Ten?”
“I was ten,” she said.
“She was not even your age, then.”
“Who?”
“The princess.”
He moved carefully, wiping the blade clean.
“When your father led the attack on the demon-emperor Sutoh, when they burned the White River House and Goshira took the throne… he didn’t know.
Nobody could have known.” He held the axe before him, angling it to see the light flare like a tiny sun along the edge.
“The demon-emperor had fled,” he said, “but the house wasn’t empty. His child, and her caretakers, were still there. When the River House burned, Sutoh’s daughter was trapped with her servants, in the flames. No one knew she was there. But she was.”
He gazed up at the afternoon sky, icy and cold.
“Your father killed the demon-emperor’s daughter when he burned their house.
And for that, he thought he’d been cursed.
Maybe the curse came true. He told me, once, he thought that was why Sutoh went mad.
The death of his daughter… He told me it was why the demon-emperor cursed this land… ”
Yora stopped. “Before his death, he asked me to protect you. To protect his children, and his family. He wanted to undo the damage he had done. He didn’t want you to follow in his path.”
The Jibashiri arrived at sundown, led by the wolfish Kaji Getoh.
By the time Kai ran to meet them, they were in the small courtyard within the gate, huddled together by the horses, some in armor, some in traveling clothes, all bundled in heavy cloaks.
When she approached, she heard Yora’s intake of breath.
“Myorin,” he called. “Tsuna.”
“Father.” Myorin raced into her father’s arms, her sister a moment later; the two sides greeted each other at the edge of the garden.
Kai noticed a no’in woman with them, dressed in blue-and-black traveling clothes and a straw-covered coat.
Shorter than Kai, her features were painted with shadow and torchlight.
But in her eyes, Kai saw only fear. Beside her stood a graying crow monk from the mountains, holding a wooden staff with prayer rings.
“Rui,” the old man said, “this is Prince Nioh. And Kai, of the Gensei family.”
Yora approached. “Jobo Daiten. What brings you here?”
“The gods,” the crow monk said. Then, with a look at the no’in: “And her. We have much to discuss.” The three river monks, in their long black robes and rounded hats, stood together to one side. They hadn’t stopped looking at the no’in woman, Rui, since the moment she entered the courtyard.
“Let’s get you inside,” Yora said. “You’ve been riding hard. And we don’t have much time.”
Their meeting went long into the night, and at the end of it, Kai lingered in the temple courtyard, exhausted and certain that they were doomed.
She could do nothing but sit on the stones, feeling the fear spread through her spine, and listen as the mirror prince played his bamboo flute beside the well.
A mournful, haunting melody floated through the little gates like waves, drifting to the river garden, the rocks and flowers, and the night.
She wondered at the life she could have lived, if only things were different.
If there was no war, if her father had never turned against his friend Seikiyo, or if he had succeeded; if, instead of swords, their family were trained to play music in the soft summer evenings like the ones she remembered from her youth, where men like Nioh didn’t have to be afraid, and lived their lives in peace. They could have been happy.
When he was done, Nioh placed his flute in its case.
“Thank you,” she said. And saw he had tears brimming in his eyes.
Beyond, the soldiers were donning armor, preparing to strip the bridge of its planks.
Kai watched them, not knowing what to do.
This was so different than planning strategies on a board.
She felt like she was looking through a small tube, and had no idea if danger, or safety, existed on either side.
Her hands trembled; her stomach churned.
She’d never been a natural fighter like Hayo.
The idea of holding a sword in her hand made her want to throw up.
But now, what was the choice? It seemed like another life, when she had stood worrying over her robes at the retired-emperor’s steps.
She found her uncle in consultation with the monks. “A great evil is in the wind,” said the river monk, Gochi-no-Tai. “Something is coming, and not just the army of Seikiyo. We’ve seen portents. It comes from the east. We must be careful.”
Yora frowned. “The Keishi are coming from the west. I have to fight the enemy I can see.”
Gochi nodded, but his face looked grim.
“They’re worried,” Yora told her later. “We’re vulnerable on the east side of the river but there’s nothing we can do. Do you need anything?”
“I…” Her breath caught. “I could use some help getting ready.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “Kai. It’s all right to be scared.”
In the temple reading room, Yora helped her into her armor and presented her a sword. “It’s not much, but it’ll do. We don’t want anyone recognizing you.” He carefully removed the crest from the helm, leaving it blank, unremarkable. She could tell he had something on his mind.
“We will lose this battle, Kai,” he said at length. “It’s not a question anymore.”
“Surely we can do something,” she began. Yora shook his head.
“I don’t want you to have a false impression about what’s going to happen.
We will lose. They will meet us at the river.
Hopefully we’ll be able to hold them at the bridge.
But the water is treacherous, unpredictable.
The rainfall in these hills has been inconsistent.
If they try to cross, they may drown themselves, but there’s an equal chance they’ll find a way to ford.
Akiyo is a key leader of their military force; her lands are behind us, east and north of the crossing.
She may try to cut us off from there. We cannot change this. ”
“Then we have no hope.”
“It’s not a matter of hope. It will happen.
We may hold them briefly, but they will take the bridge and they will take the temples.
If the Musha’in is as smart as I think she is, she’ll meet Tokuon on the field, stop him getting to us.
We’ll have to fight our way free. Many clans have not responded to our calls.
They think we’ll fail, think if they follow us, they’ll receive no rewards.
The Keishi will have offered more than anything we could pay. ”
He spoke carefully, with measured, even tones.
“I want you to have no illusions about this battle, Kai. That is all. Don’t try to make a name for yourself.
If you have to, hide. Smuggle yourself away.
Let my daughters carry you. That is all that matters.
Speed. Speed of your evacuation from this place. And that of our prince.”
“What of you?” she asked.
“I’m the same as everyone else,” he said. “For this battle, this night, I exist only to buy you time. I pray it will be enough.”
He set his gaze on the lonely courtyard outside, with its single, frost-covered tree, illuminated faint as a shadow beneath the ridge of sleeping mountains beyond. Then, on a paper, he dashed out a few quick lines in ink.
The empty tree
We tried to gather fruit
in this sorrowful world
Such is life –
Flowering no more
The wind came; he went out, held the slim paper on an open palm, waiting until the breeze picked it up and carried it away. She caught one last glimpse, a small white streak in deepening blue, then it was gone.
“You should get some rest,” he said, at last. “It will happen in the morning.”
On her way back to the barracks, she met the no’in she’d noticed before, a short young woman in black clothes and shin-wraps and mud-splattered cloaks.
“Ame’in,” the woman said, head low.
Kai considered her. A servant? A porter? She was clearly nervous. Kai thought, I should show a gentle hand. “What is it?”
“I… know your brother, ame’in,” the woman said. “We grew up together. In a way. But, what I mean is, I wanted to tell you… He’s a good warrior, he’s with your cousin… They’re behind us but they’re coming. He’ll help.”
Kai found it hard to meet her eyes, and didn’t know why.
“There’s still hope,” the woman said. “That’s all I meant. Thank you, ame’in.”
Before Kai could respond, the woman bowed quickly, hurried away.
Kai wondered who she was. Why a no’in porter would claim to know her brother, and wondered if Sen Hoshiakari would be the force that changed the tide.
She was left with nothing but the silence of the night, the tired lines on the young no’in woman’s face, the shadows under her eyes, and the feeling that something had been haunting her.
I’m fighting for you, Kai thought. To help all people and rid the corruption from this land. But she knew she’d never understand the ghosts that haunted people like this woman, knew she’d never learn the woman’s tale. She would just pass on, another blade of grass in the windswept sea.
Kai wondered what ghosts lay behind the woman’s eyes, why it looked like she was hurting. Why it seemed the ghosts would win.