Thousand Shrine Warrior
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Authors: Jessica Amanda Salmonson
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Thousand Shrine Warrior
The Tomoe Gozen Saga, Book Three
Jessica Amanda Salmonson
To history's Tomoe Gozenâ
different from her Naiponese counterpart
but just as strong
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
by Wendy Wees
Birdfolk of White Beast Shrine
Graveyard at the Temple of the Gorge
PROLEGOMENON
Naipon the Anchored Empire
the Land of Marsh and Reeds.
Naipon of peak and valley
river, stone and tree.
Naipon of the Thousands of Myriads
who animate the world.
Naipon between the Heavenly River
and the lands called Roots and Gloom.
Naipon where warriors stalk
and are stalked by
the invisible and the seen.
Naipon where good and evil meet
exchange identities
and meet again.
Naipon where strange beasts roam
and stranger men.
Naipon of the Sun's womb.
Naipon of steel.
Naipon in glory and pathos
sweetness and terror
Naipon.
PART ONE
The Nameless Nun
The woman, pale with fright, hurried through moonlit woods, stumbling, breathing heavily, trying not to cry out. The cloth
obi
, which ordinarily wrapped around her waist several times to hold her kimono together, was half undone. It trailed the ground behind her, catching on fallen branches. Her kimono threatened to open altogether. Behind her, she heard rude laughter. One of the three men called to the others,
“Takeno! Yojiemon!”
“This way, Chojiro,” a laughing voice replied. “Over here!”
“No!” shouted the voice of the one called Chojiro. “This way! I see her!”
Panicked, she fell, drew her long obi inward so that it would not trip her again, then rose and dashed onward. The laughter behind her grew louder. She could not outdistance them.
Somewhere up ahead she heard the mournful notes of a
shakuhachi
, a heavy bamboo flute. She ran toward the sound, thinking it might be a priest playing for the moon's sake or for his night's meditation. But the sound echoed weirdly under the canopy of evergreens, confusing her about the direction to run. She dropped the end of her loose obi and it caught on something, coming off entirely. She did not try to retrieve it, but held the front of her kimono closed with both hands and continued forward.
When the three men happened on the obi, one of themâChojiro, the thickly built fellowâpicked up one end. He sniffed it, grinning some more.
“Now she will be easier to get at,” said Yojiemon, a man younger and prettier than the other two, but somehow more cruel in appearance. Chojiro let go of the obi and tried to scan the dark woods. Due to the fact that he was somewhat overweight, he breathed harder than the others. The third man, Takeno, was the least winded by the chase. He was the strongest in appearance, in a lean and wolfish manner.
All three men bore two swords apiece, proof that they were samurai and not common ruffians. But they were drunk, as befits no samurai of merit. Takeno, the quieter of the three, raised his hand and pointed in the direction of a momentary flash of color in the moonlight. The three were off again, leaving the woman's obi snaked across a bush.
She was hiding behind a thick tree, trying not to let her breath be heard. The men passed by, so close she smelled their sweat and the wine they had been drinking. They did not go far before stopping, looking left and right.
Chojiro was the most befuddled by the saké. “You saw her go this way?” he asked, panting. “You're sure?”
Takeno did not answer.
“What Takeno sees is certain,” said Yojiemon.
“Where can she hide?” asked Chojiro. “A matter of pride that we catch her! Especially after she kicked Takeno that way!”
“Takeno has an iron groin,” said Yojiemon. “Still, she escaped before we could finish our business with her. Not real men if we let her go!”
New notes from the shakuhachi drew the woman out. She ran toward the sound again, and the men saw her. “Hoi! Hoi!” shouted Chojiro who led the chase in clumsy bounds. The sleek samurai and the one with young, cruel visage and mirth followed casually.
The echoing music confused her again. She dashed in a new direction and was cut off. The three men surrounded her. Yojiemon's laughter did not abate. Chojiro smacked fat lips lustfully, nearly drooling. Takeno kept quiet but was the most frightening for that.
“You want her, Chojiro?” asked Yojiemon. “Prove you know how!”
“I will!” said Chojiro as he untied his
hakama
, the split skirt worn over his kimono. He placed his long and short swords against a tree while doffing the hakama, then began to untie his kimono's obi. The woman lunged not away from Chojiro, but toward him, grabbing for his swords by the tree. Takeno was quick to kick her away, but she had managed to get the shortsword in her hand. She unsheathed it. Yojiemon's cruel laughter was louder. Neither he nor Takeno moved to help Chojiro.
“To lose your sword is to lose face!” chided Yojiemon. “How will you handle her now, Chojiro?”
She stabbed and stabbed, but Chojiro evaded her easily. He was not in as good shape as a samurai should be, but he was battle-trained nonetheless, and she was helpless against him. She stabbed again, but missed her mark as before. The other two men began to approach, seeing that Chojiro could not take the knife away without some help. It would not be possible to fend off all three at once, so she darted around the tree, then took off through the woods again.
As she had Chojiro's shortsword, it became a matter of honor for him to get it back without his friends' help. They might not hold back to give him the chance, however, for they weren't the sort to be concerned with Chojiro's loss of face. They would probably tell everyone about it, too, unless he got the weapon back immediately. The woman was uncertain if grabbing the sword had improved or worsened matters for herself.
Chojiro's headlong rush was reckless. His obi had been half-untied before the woman caused so much trouble, so he was not in the position to catch someone. Still, he almost had herâexcept that she reeled about and slashed blindly, scratching him by sheer luck.
“
Shimatta!
” he cursed, lurching back and inspecting his minor cut. He said again, “Damn!” His friends caught up with him, one carrying his hakama, the other his longsword. He took the hakama and threw it away angrily. Yojiemon said, “A crime to steal a samurai's sword. You will have to kill her now. No other way to regain face.” Chojiro tied his obi quickly and took his longsword from Takeno. Takeno said to Yojiemon, his voice strangely gentle,
“We would have killed her anyway. What would happen to us if she told?”
“Yes, but now Chojiro will have to do it. I don't think he has killed a woman before.”
“Can you?” asked Takeno quietly.
“I can.”
“Good,” said Yojiemon. They heard a fallen branch crack under a footfall and were after her again.
At the wood's edge, she stumbled into a cemetery. She hurried along paths between small stone gods and monuments. She kept running until she came to a section of the cemetery where the poor were buried close to one another. A thousand sticks poked high into the air, bearing the names of the individuals whose ashes were in the pots below the ground, or bearing sutras for those whose names were unknown. There was barely room to run between these high slats.
A strap of one of her sandals broke. She fell hard against a little stone deity, nearly losing consciousness. She heard the men close by and it shook her from her daze. Rising, she stumbled onward, hobbling with one foot bare. She had dropped the shortsword and her head hurt so much that she hadn't thought to look where the sword had fallen.
A cloud passed before the moon. In the darkness she could not keep to the narrow paths through the forest of slats. She knocked the closely placed markers awry; they rattled like bones as they struck eath other. She was sorry to desecrate their sad, destitute graves, but too frightened to stop and apologize to the spirits whose places were upset.