Saiko gasped as a breeze made the bridge dance. “We have to cross that?”
“You could swim,” I suggested, and she glanced at the river and shuddered, taking a step back. “One at a time, then. The bridge won’t take too much weight. I’ll go—”
Saiko suddenly fell over.
She hit the ground in a snarl of kimono skirts, thrashing on her back, as a bent sapling beside her whipped upright. Ichiro jumped to her side, but fell also as I kicked his feet out from under him. At the same time, I dropped my pack and dived for the mossy ground.
A knife hummed through the air and buried itself up to the hilt in the soft earth where I had been standing.
I hit the dirt with one shoulder, rolled, and saw in flashes what was happening:
Two figures in mottled, dull-brown clothing, hard to see against a background of branches, dropping out of the trees.
Saiko’s blank, shocked face as she quit struggling to stare.
One of the intruders landing next to Ichiro before he could get back to his feet.
The boy, yanked upright, with the bright flash of a blade at his throat.
Then I’d rolled to my feet again and was running full-tilt for the trees, feeling the wind ruffle my hair as another knife missed by a handspan. I was up in the limbs of a giant pine, concealed by thick branches and dull green needles, about ten seconds after Saiko had fallen.
“Can you see where she is?” That was the one who had thrown the knife. A female voice, young but no girl.
“No.” That was the one who held Ichiro. A woman. Familiar.
I pressed myself against the trunk, not daring to move as my mind shuffled frantically through options.
I had the advantage of height and, for the moment, secrecy. I knew where they were. They could not be sure where I was. But I’d lose that advantage with the first move I made.
They had the advantage of numbers—two against one. Or perhaps more. There could be others, hidden as I was, in trees or behind boulders, impossible to see until they chose to strike. These were not samurai, boldly swaggering to battle in their bright armor, daring anyone to challenge them. These were shadow warriors, deadly flowers. Ninjas.
Madame’s ninjas. Or they wouldn’t have known about the bridge, and that I would likely make for it. And Madame had sent not just one, but at least two. She must have wanted us back very badly. Or she wanted the pearl in my pocket.
“Come down,” the woman holding Ichiro called. “Or the boy is dead.”
The sound of that voice clicked neatly into place in my mind. Instructor Willow.
It was a strange threat for Willow to make. Three nights ago, hadn’t I been the one ready to sink a knife into the boy? Why should she think I cared if he died?
But I did care. I’d gotten him away from his uncle’s castle, away from Madame’s school; I’d kept him safe so far from ghosts and demons, and I didn’t plan to lose him to another ninja’s blade. It would be such a waste of all my work.
Besides, I didn’t believe her.
A small, faintly familiar sound drifted down from the branches above me. I didn’t glance up, hoping my enemies had not heard what I had. Instead, I lowered myself onto a new limb, thick and nearly parallel to the ground.
“Kill him,” I answered, walking out along the branch I had chosen into their view. I saw Ichiro’s eyes widen, but then I saw his face grow trustful. His sister had been right. He trusted much too easily.
I squatted down on my heels and studied the little group—Ichiro tense but calm, Willow holding her knife at his throat, Saiko flat on the ground, the other ninja by her side. She’d stepped on Saiko’s long hair, close to the scalp, to keep the girl pinned down and out of her way.
“You’re bluffing,” the girl holding Saiko told me.
“Maybe you are,” I answered, squinting at her face. “Raku? It’s you?”
She nodded. I remembered her. She’d been at the school until perhaps four years ago. A good fighter, not the quickest thinker. Slow to react at times.
“Come down, Kata.” Willow tightened her grip on Ichiro’s shoulder. “You know I won’t hesitate.”
But she had already hesitated. If Madame had sent her to kill the boy, why hadn’t she done so with a thrown knife from the bushes? Why bother setting a snare, unless …
Unless Madame had decided that the Kashihara heir would be more valuable alive than dead?
“I’ll stay up here, thank you.”
“Five seconds, Kata. One …”
I heard it again, the sound that had tickled my ear a few moments ago. One little chuckle from a clump of dark needles over my head. And a dozen more to answer it.
“Two …”
I twitched my left hand, letting a knife slide into it from the sheath along my forearm. Raku gripped a knife of her own by the blade and cocked it over her shoulder, ready to throw.
“Careful,” I warned her. “Madame doesn’t want me dead. Or the boy. Does she?”
Slowly, my right hand slid to twist a pinecone loose from a twig near my feet.
“Do you think so? How much are you willing to gamble on that?” Willow’s voice was smooth, but I’d seen the frustration that flickered behind her eyes. She didn’t plan to kill the boy, and she was annoyed that I had guessed.
And she had stopped counting.
“Just this,” I answered her, and flicked the pinecone as hard as I could at the branches over my head.
A flurry of black wings and some very inventive cursing exploded out of the bunch of needles. Willow’s eyes flew toward the sound, and her blade shifted slightly away from Ichiro’s throat and toward this new threat.
Raku’s knife flew through the air, but mine met it halfway to the tree, knocking it harmlessly aside, and I dove off the branch to hit the ground close to Willow’s feet.
I didn’t draw my sword before I leapt—that’s a good way to impale yourself—but I turned my body into a weapon, rolling at Ichiro and Willow, thumping into their knees, sending both sprawling.
Ichiro had the sense to scramble out of the way, leaving me free to stamp hard on Willow’s wrist as I rolled myself to my feet. I heard bone crack and I snatched her sword from her slack fingers as I continued rising. It was a good thing I did, because Raku was lunging at me, and I barely had a chance to parry a blow that would have split my skull.
Maybe Madame wanted the boy alive, but didn’t care quite so much about me …
Raku had put all of her weight into that one swing, and now her balance was off, so I dropped the sword and grabbed her wrist and elbow, using her own momentum to heave her over my shoulder. As I did it, my ears caught the sound of running feet. By the time Raku rolled and was up again, I had my own blade out and she was backing away from me.
“Is she gone?” I called, still forcing Raku to retreat toward the river. She had her sword in her hand but did not dare to use it; mine was too close to her throat.
“Yes. She ran,” Ichiro confirmed.
Gone didn’t mean defeated, of course. But Willow probably assumed that Raku would be dead in the next few seconds, and that she herself would be at too much of a disadvantage, facing me alone and with a broken wrist. This was twice I’d taken her sword from her hand. She wouldn’t have forgotten that.
Meanwhile, I had the problem of Raku, who had stopped now with her heels an inch from the mossy edge of the gorge.
“You were always quick,” she said softly. “And what was that in the tree?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I answered, and she lifted her eyes to mine.
I was hesitating. She knew why.
I’d have to do what I had not done in Ichiro’s room. I’d have to kill someone.
Nothing else would work. I could not frighten Raku or threaten her. I could not make a deal with her. I could not tell her I’d spare her life if she’d leave us in peace.
Any deal Raku made with me, she’d ignore. Any promise I forced from her, she’d betray. She would break he
r word, lie, cheat, steal, do anything necessary to finish what she had begun.
And she knew that I understood.
The honor of a shadow warrior would drive her, the honor of those who were not supposed to have any. A nobleman would laugh at the idea of a ninja with honor. A samurai would spit. They saw us as thieves and greedy cowards, hiding behind disguises, killing in the darkness, selling our skills for gold. They thought we knew nothing of pride or loyalty.
They were wrong.
A ninja’s honor meant that she finished her job. A ninja’s loyalty, always, was to her mission.
All of these thoughts flashed through my mind in the time it took for Raku’s gaze to soften just a little.
“It’s your first?” she said too quietly for Saiko and Ichiro to hear. “Do it quickly. Don’t think. It will be easier.”
She closed her eyes. Her sword hung limply from her slackened fingers.
Now I wasn’t the only one hesitating. Everything around me was silent, as if the world had drawn in one huge breath and was waiting to release it.
Then Raku’s fingers tightened and her sword flashed up, knocking mine aside. I had to drop to the ground to avoid the tip of her blade as it dove for my eyes. On my knees, I twisted to parry a second, sloppy blow as Raku’s foot skidded on a rock covered with wet moss and she fought for her balance, there on the edge.
She didn’t see a pale hand reach up from the gorge behind her.
“Help me, please …”
Raku whirled. She flinched away from the ghost, tried to recover, and could not. Her sword hit the water a second after she did.
She was swept away by the rushing current. I saw her sleek black head break the surface once before she was pulled under again. The ghost was nowhere to be seen.
“Across the bridge, now!” I shouted, spinning back to look at Saiko and Ichiro. The boy had managed to loosen the cord around Saiko’s foot, the one that had been firmly tied to the top of that flexible sapling. When she’d stepped into the loop, she’d knocked aside the peg that had been holding both the cord and the sapling down, and had ended up as helpless as a beetle on its back—just as Raku or Willow had planned.
Brother and sister were both gaping at me.
“Hurry!” I ordered, scanning the undergrowth for signs of Instructor Willow. But it was a different threat that snagged my attention first—a black and buzzing cloud that rose from the pine tree where I had taken shelter. “Get across the bridge now.” I settled my sword in my hand.
Ichiro waved at Saiko to go first, and stayed at my back as she began to inch her way across. A winged shape detached itself from the dark cloud and darted straight at me.
The tengu pulled itself to a stop and hovered in the air just beyond the reach of my sword. It had human eyes in a beaked face, crowned with an untidy mop of black hair; its body was that of a huge crow, except for the long-fingered hands on the ends of the wings. One of those gripped a sword the length of a chopstick. The other held a pinecone.
I tried to keep my blade between us, but the little creature was as quick as a dragonfly, and tengu were legendary swordsmen. Would I even be able to connect if it decided to attack? And what about the flock overhead, hovering in watchful, waiting silence?
Scowling, the tengu lifted the pinecone and shook its head at me. It had not appreciated being used as a diversion.
I took a risk and sheathed my sword. Then I put my empty hands together, and bowed in humble apology. Behind me, Ichiro gasped.
The tengu burst into hoarse laughter. I straightened up, and it lobbed the pinecone at my face. Instinctively, I caught it. The tengu wheeled away, joining its flock, and more laughter rained down. So did several more pinecones, bouncing harmlessly off our heads and shoulders as Ichiro and then I crossed the bridge after Saiko.
When I glanced back across the river, the winged black shapes had vanished into the trees once more. But I could feel their sharp eyes watching as I drew my sword, knelt, and sliced through the cords, destroying the bridge for anyone who’d want to follow us.
“But why?” Saiko had collapsed again and was rubbing her ankle gingerly. “That instructor—you defeated her. Surely she won’t—”
“Of course she will. She’s a ninja. They both are.” Had Saiko learned nothing at all in her days at the school? “Raku can swim. She may be able to get out of that river, if she doesn’t bash her head on a rock. And Willow—I broke her wrist, not her neck. She’ll be after us.”
“But there’s no way across the river, now that the bridge is down. Not unless she goes all the way back to the ford,” Ichiro protested.
“She’ll find one.” I groaned. “This is not like a battle—do you understand? We didn’t win. They didn’t lose. It’s not as simple as that. They have a mission to complete, and they will never give up. Our only hope is to make it hard for them to follow us. That means we have to move as quickly as we can.”
Speed was the reason I’d reluctantly tossed Willow’s sword into the river after Raku’s before I’d crossed the bridge. Another blade would have weighed my pack too heavily. Raku’s thrown knife had been sacrificed to the river, too, but my own was back in its sheath along my arm.
Saiko let her brother pull her to her feet. “So you should have killed her when you could,” she said mildly. She didn’t meet my eyes.
“Yes,” I said grimly, starting forward along a thin and winding path that led away from the river and into the dense forest all around us. “I should have.”
But I hadn’t. I hadn’t killed Raku any more than I had thrust my knife into Ichiro. Raku and Willow were both ninjas, no doubt. But what was I?
THIRTEEN
Our trail took us up through the woods and, at last, back to a wider road that twisted and wound along a valley floor while mountains rose around us. The rice fields were gone; orchards took their place. The fields grew smaller and stonier. The villages grew shabbier and poorer, and farther apart.
I would not stop and bargain for a midday meal. We were slower than I liked already. Raku might have fished herself out of the water by now, if she had survived. Willow had probably found a way to cross the river, broken wrist and all. And there were other things to worry about in the forest, things deadlier than deadly flowers. Not long ago, I would not have believed that was possible.
Just before the mountain pass that would lead us into Kashihara Yoshisane’s country, there was a small village. I was determined to reach it before nightfall. But darkness comes early in the mountains, and the sun was touching the ridge above us when I looked over my shoulder for the hundredth time to see that Saiko was limping and leaning on Ichiro.
I backtracked to meet them. “What is it?”
She gestured at her foot, and I looked down to see her ankle marked with a dark line of bruised flesh where Raku’s snare had caught her. The flesh on either side of this line was beginning to swell. My gaze moved to her brother’s face. Ichiro’s mouth was pinched at the corners, and I could see his eyes aching to close.
I truly hadn’t thought it was possible for the two of them to be slower. And yet it was.
“Oh, you poor dear,” the headman’s wife exclaimed when we knocked on her door. At least I assumed she was the headman’s wife. Her house was the largest in the village—two entire rooms—and so we’d headed straight there as the last, lingering bit of the evening’s light slipped from the sky.
“Come in, of course, hurry now, and let’s get her off that foot,” the woman said as we entered. Even as tired as she was, Saiko still managed to slide into a graceful heap on the mats, stained and worn thin with the tracks of many bare feet.
A warlord’s daughter had probably never been inside such a humble building in her life. The wooden walls had obvious cracks between the planks, and the air was dim with smoke from the open fire that burned in a square pit dug into the dirt floor. However, if Saiko felt herself too good for such surroundings, she did not reveal it, though she did blink a little as if the smoke stung h
er eyes.
“Please forgive me for giving you such trouble,” she said meekly to our hostess.
I nearly snorted. Trouble for this village wife? What about the trouble she’d been for me? I’d practically carried her for the last mile, every step of it uphill.
“Trouble, no such thing,” the woman exclaimed. “Travelers often stay here. We’re glad enough to have them, for we wouldn’t have much news otherwise. Though of course we’re poor people here …” She was wrapping a damp, mostly clean rag around Saiko’s foot, as she let her sentence trail off, expectantly.
I’d reluctantly agreed to give up the last of our copper coins for meals and bedding, when the doorway darkened. I looked up, trying to slip my hand toward one of my throwing knives without being too obvious about it. But our hostess’s glad cry was reassuring.
“There you are, Ryoichi! Tell me you’ve brought something for the pot. For look, visitors! The first in, oh, well. Tell me, you killed something? Didn’t you?”
The man at the door ducked his head to come in and revealed himself to be much younger than I’d thought at first.
“Here, Mother.” He handed her three or four good-sized fish hanging from a forked stick threaded through their gills. So she was the headman’s mother, not his wife. She kissed his cheek in delight and set about scaling and cleaning his catch, while the young man came and sat by the fire.
“Don’t you worry, we’ll have something for you in a heartbeat; nothing makes you hungrier than traveling,” the woman chattered as she worked. “You must tell us, where are you headed? We know all the best roads, of course.”
I nodded at Saiko to do the talking. Perhaps it wasn’t wise; I shouldn’t let her draw more attention to herself than she could help. But lies sounded better coming out of her mouth. No one was inclined to disbelieve that face.
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