The Fox's Quest (9 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Sanae

S
anae wasn’t yet certain what she thought of Domi the hermit and Marin the
shinobi
. The man was suspiciously bright on the spiritual plane. He was filled with energy in a way mere humans weren’t supposed to be. Aito must have seen it too, through his familiars’ eyes, but he’d yet to mention it.

Too curious to hold back, she asked,
What are you? I can’t explain what I see. I’d think you were a possessed man, but it’s not a cohesive unit you’ve got in you, it’s loose energy.

“I was wondering if you could see it,” Domi replied. “But I might return the question.”

Domi had taken her arrival in stride and that reinforced Sanae’s suspicions there were secrets to uncover here. What kind of weird person would be unsurprised by the appearance of a fox spirit? It wasn’t like this man had familiars like Aito and Toshishiro did.

Marin hadn’t reacted anywhere as kindly. Even though Domi had told her to stand down, she kept fingering a small dagger inscribed with demon-slaying glyphs. Sanae had taken to sitting close to Jien, using his body as a shield. If Jien were injured, she could heal him. The other way round was impossible.

She remained behind Jien even after the woman left the cave that served as her and Domi’s home, in case she suddenly returned.
Shinobi
had scarily fast reflexes.

I don’t play stalling games,
she told Domi.
I will tell you about myself, and you will tell us about yourself. Then we’ll go and get that weapon before someone who means to do evil with it shows up.

She began,
You must have guessed I’m a daughter of the Fox clan. My body died on the battlefield, but my mind did not. While exploring the spirit world, I discovered a strange object that was sucking in energy. I sent my brother to investigate and he found a strange sword there. When we consulted the monks, we learned it was a copy of a stolen sword. We wish to find the original and all the copies to destroy them. Is that enough information for you?

Domi’s smile was weak and strained. Sanae hadn’t failed to notice the pain lines around his eyes, or the fact Marin had slipped medicine in his teacup.

“I’m unfortunately prone to headaches,” he said, rubbing at his temples with his fingertips. “They’re caused by this thing you see in me. So far as I know, I am the sole human able to—”

Marin appeared at the mouth of the cave. “Domi. There’s a party of four men coming up the trail. They have the look of bandits.”

“Visitors twice in one day? Interesting coincidence, isn’t it, my love?”

“I’d wager they were sent to retrieve the sword,” Jien said. “The thief must have noticed we got hold of the other.”

Domi climbed to his feet as carefully as an old man might, using his spear as support. “There’s no helping it, then. Shall we greet them?”

“Will you be all right?” Marin asked as she took Domi’s face in her hands and searched his eyes. “If you use it now…”

Sanae’s ears perked at this mysterious “it” but no details were forthcoming. Domi only replied, “I’ll do what I must. Do keep that cushion handy.”

Marin waved a hand at Aito and Jien. “Stay back. This is our territory and you’ll just get in the way.”

“Very well,” Aito said. “We will stay here and wait.”

Jien hissed at him. “Easy for you to say, mister I-have-spies-that-go-everywhere. I want to see what happens too!”

I’ll tell you if we need help,
Sanae said gleefully, prancing after the hermit monk and pretending not to hear Jien’s irritated curses.

She dispersed into mist to spy without being noticed and hung about the tree in which the
shinobi
settled, up and out of sight. Unlike the silly boys who kept goggling at Marin’s exposed legs, Sanae wasn’t surprised by her
furisode
’s high cut; a woman couldn’t go about climbing trees and fighting enemies while she was tripping on the hem of her clothes! The cut was sensible, freeing her legs for any sort of maneuver she might need to perform. Anyone would, however, have to concede Marin’s clothing was unsuited to the season. Maybe she needed to be introduced to the idea of leg wraps.

The quiet noises of the forest were overtaken by the clomping of horse hoofs. The men who came into sight did have an edge to them that might lead one to call them bandit; they were none too clean, scruffy, and heavily armed. But they could also have been simple mercenaries or masterless samurai, either of which might accept paid work, whether honorable or not.

The man in the lead was alone in not wearing a straw hat to fend off the snowflakes lazily drifting down and so his topknot was visible. But while the topknot was the preferred hairstyle of samurai, it was also popular among the general population.

She peered at the men’s weapons and found single swords hanging at their waists. Not samurai then. By imperial decree, only samurai were permitted—even required—to wear the two-sword combo, the long one called the katana and the short one called the
wakizashi
. That hadn’t stopped Akakiba from offering Yuki the traditional combo, but it’d take a special person to argue with him about it.

Leaning on his spear in the middle of the road, Domi called out, “Hello, friends. What brings you to my mountain?”

The man at the rear pulled out a bow, the others their swords. “Out of the way. We’re about our own business.”

“In that case, kindly conduct it elsewhere than on my mountain.”

The leader kicked his horse forward, meaning to run Domi down.

An object hurtled through the air and tangled in the horse’s legs, sending rider and mount to the ground in a screaming and cursing heap. Marin dropped from the tree, her hands holding further throwing weapons. This sudden move made the bowman aim at her instead of Domi.

The bow sang but the arrow didn’t find its mark. Neither did the next, or the next. Ducking and swirling around tree trunks, Marin proved to be an elusive target. Her mocking laughter kept the bowman’s attention on her.

Pulling her existence tight together, Sanae bounded onto the battlefield and in the face of the fallen leader, who was now trying to rise. She sank her sharp teeth into his shoulder and he howled. Her mouth filled with blood and while she knew it should taste coppery, it didn’t. Taste was truly lost to her. It was such a little thing, such an insignificant thing… But it made her want to wail.

She snarled at herself,
Focus, idiot! This is a battleground!

Sanae sensed an energy disturbance coming from right where Domi stood. What was he doing? His right arm was raised, aimed at the mounted swordsmen who were trying to ride around their fallen comrade to get at him.

Spheres of white energy shot from his fingers and went right through the men’s heads and upper bodies, taking flesh with them and setting the men to screaming. More and more appeared, a barrage of tiny spheres hurtling through anything that was in the way, be it flesh, bone, or wood.

Sanae flattened herself down, unwilling to risk taking a stray hit.

When Domi stopped, the sword-wielding men were dead and their horses danced frantically, none too happy to have slumped corpses on their backs. Not far, the bowman lay on the ground with a throwing knife embedded deep in his eye.

Do we want this one alive?
Sanae asked about the leader, whose throat she now had in her jaws. She could easily talk with her mouth full.

“We need to know who sent them,” Aito said as he arrived on the scene, breathing heavily as if he’d dashed over.

Jien arrived on Aito’s heels. “What happened? What was is that made Aito take off like a rabbit? It must have been the most amazing sight, and I missed it!”

Those were solid spheres of spiritual energy you threw at them,
Sanae said to the hermit.
How?

“As I had begun to say before, I appear to be the sole human who can—”

That was when Domi collapsed to the cold, wet ground. Marin jumped forward, pulling the cushion free from its position against her body and the rope with it. She ignored Jien’s alarmed “what’s wrong?” in favor of wrapping the cushion against the back and sides of Domi’s head and securing it in place with the rope.

Domi was shaking, hard. His open eyes were unseeing and his muscles were tense and strained; his fists drummed the earth and his feet kicked out at the air.

Marin alone did not gasp at this alarming development, her face sad but by no means surprised. She held Domi’s head in her lap, keeping him from banging it against rock or tree. The cushion’s role suddenly became clear.

This isn’t the first time, is it?

“No. This is the cost of his ability. He’ll be fine.”

Kneeling to grab Domi’s wrists, Jien held his arms high so they did not slam against the ground. It was a good idea; the force with which Domi twitched might well have broken bones.

At last the convulsions began to ease and Marin stroked Domi’s face, murmuring to him. “That’s it, love. Relax.”

Moments later, Domi blinked up at them. “Oh, I hurt. I had an attack again, didn’t I?”

“You mean you don’t know?” Jien said with raised eyebrows.

“I know I hurt as if a great dragon had sat on me repeatedly, but no, I don’t recall the event. Give me a moment.”

They stood shuffling about, unsure what to say.

“Wasn’t I telling you about my abilities?” Domi said. “I’m human, but I can manipulate spiritual energy. Unfortunately, the side effects are quite severe. Attacks like these take me now and then.”

Are they triggered by the use of your abilities?

“Yes and no. They occur even if I don’t use my abilities at all but they’re more likely to occur immediately after I use them.”

“Before I came along, he’d have them just anywhere,” Marin said. “In the forest, on the floor of his cave… You should have seen what he looked like after one of those!”

“Hence the cushion,” Domi said dryly. “I believe I can get up now, love.”

It was slung between Marin and Aito that Domi returned to his cave house. He was laid near the fire to dry off, for his clothes had soaked in the water on the ground. Tea was served and rice put to cooking while Domi rested, eyes half-closed, occasionally grumbling about the “demon party” in his head.

When Sanae felt she had waited sufficiently long to satisfy politeness, she asked,
How can you hurt
people with spiritual energy? I thought it was a healing sort of energy.

“When gathered gently, it heals. But I compress the energy so tightly it becomes physical for a brief moment. In that time, I can hurl my little balls forward at such speed they penetrate any matter in front of me. If I could throw a knife with this kind of strength, it would penetrate armor the same way.”

I see. I suppose it’s similar to when I make myself solid and bite people. I’m made of the same neutral energy, but I can use it to harm. Interesting.

“Is someone going to help me or not?” Jien complained. He was busy with their hand-tied prisoner, trying to coax answers from the uncooperative man.

“Your methods are too soft.” Marin pushed her bangs aside and, with a whip-fast motion of her hand, threw a tiny dart at the prisoner. “There. He’ll talk or he won’t get any antidote.”

The man did, screaming all the while. Through his babbling, they gathered the mercenaries had been told to recover a sword and bring it to an inn in Kyoto.

“He knows nothing else of interest,” Marin said after the man began to repeat himself. She cut the man’s throat and did not flinch as blood gushed out. Afterwards, she dragged the body outside.

Sanae stared after the
shinobi
. Killing a person should rate more expression than killing a bug, shouldn’t it?

A voice from within her questioned,
Who is the worst person, the woman who kills without feelings or the woman who kills and enjoys it?

But it’s the fighting I enjoy, not the killing
, she argued.
And killing on the battleground isn’t like killing in cold blood!

Yet... maybe the voice had a point.

“We could go to the inn he mentioned with the sword,” Jien said, “or perhaps with a copy, and see who approaches us.”

“We might have no choice,” Aito said. “If men were sent here, it must be because they know we took the first sword. They would also have sent men to the place Akakiba and Yuki are investigating. If those men arrive first…”

I better go check on them,
Sanae said, shocked out of her self-doubts.
They might need me.

She crossed over and sought the beacon she wanted. In a hurry, it was easier to use Yuki’s spiritual signature to track down her brother. Yuki’s aura in the spiritual realm was stronger, less contained, and therefore acted as a bright light to guide her.

When she popped in, she was perplexed, for her brother’s aura was nowhere near.

Yuki, where’s my brother?
The human slumbered before a low fire, even though it was the middle of the day.
Hey, are you sick? Yuki?

She found Drac sleeping in a cold room, but no sign of her brother anywhere. She could have popped back into the spiritual realm to seek him, but it seemed easier to demand answers from the little girl who was brushing Yuki’s horse outside.

Hey, kid. Where’s the tall samurai who travels with the man sleeping inside your home?

The little girl fell over. “Demon!”

I’m a fox spirit
, she said with strained patience
. Where is he?

“He went to stop the curse that’s killing the forest.”

What? Her brother had gone after the sword alone?

Why didn’t Yuki go with him?

“Because he has to sleep. Dragons sleep when it’s winter, so he sleeps too,” the girl said solemnly. “We have to warm up the dragon to wake him up, but not right now. He said later.”

I see. Thank you.

Sanae returned to the house, went physical, and grabbed hold of the dragon’s horns with her teeth to drag him to the fire in the other room. Drac was several times her size, but she had strength to spare. The hardest part was getting the door open.

Wake up, you idiot! Up!

She almost rolled the dragon in the fire in her haste. Her brother could be in deep trouble right now but she couldn’t help because she couldn’t go anywhere near the cursed spirit-energy-eating object he was after!

When the heat began to induce twitches in dragon and human, she bounced on Yuki’s chest.
Wake up!

“What, whoa—ow!”

Oh, good, you’re awake. Listen. That stupid brother of mine went to get the sword alone and Jien and Aito met a bunch of bandits sent to get the other sword and we think there must have been bandits sent here too and now my stupid brother is either too late to get the sword or in time to get in trouble. He can’t even bleed red if he gets in trouble!

Yuki looked at her with sleepy eyes. “What?”

“She says bad men are going to hurt your friend,” the little girl said. She was near the front door, sitting there as if she were watching a play. “Because he went alone in the cursed forest.”

“What!” Yuki sat up and Drac hissed. “Why would he go alone?”

“Because it was very cold today and you were sleepy,” the little girl said again. “You have to sleep when it’s cold, but it’s dangerous.”

“I…He…I can’t believe he left me behind!” Wide-eyed, Yuki thrust his two swords in his belt and stumbled to his feet. “Is my horse still here? I’ll go after him. Not you, Drac. Stay near the fire so we won’t fall asleep again.”

The dragon began to protest but Yuki gave him a long hard stare and he subsided near the fire.

“I’m going,” Yuki said, and left.