The Disfavored Hero

by Jessica Amanda Salmonson

  Among the courts of Naipon, the changes in Toshima would not be appreciated. The lady was a little weathered, her hair long and straight and bound back with a scarf. Her burns were long healed, but the pallor which was so highly regarded among the feminine nobility would never be Toshima’s again. The woman had become strong, independent in her retainer’s absence, and unselfish. These things the samurai saw, or heard within the prayer. Before that little shrine knelt a woman Tomoe could well imagine returning to Naipon and rebuilding the wealth of Shigeno Valley’s rich farmlands.

  The samurai whispered, “Toshima. I have returned.”

  Toshima fell from her knees in surprise, peered backward at the ceiling. Tomoe smiled sheepishly, then said, “Come up here with me and choose weapons. Two sorcerers will do battle in the ruins, one jono, one seemingly a rokubu but powerful. We must aid the jono priest. He does not know that the things on the invisible path will aid his foe.”

  Toshima stood, with many questions forming, but less need of careful explanation than of action. She had changed indeed, and welcomed the necessity of mystery and danger. She reached up to Tomoe’s down-reaching arms, was pulled into the rafters. Tomoe said, “I was right to suspect ghosts, for ghosts abound, and monsters too. But the enemy is a man, who manipulated our very fates to bring us here, all to trap the jono. If you can throw knives as well as I once saw you throw a hairpin, then we might be of aid in the battle which is promised. I am told we cannot prevail against the rokubu, but I know from experience that monsters can be felled.”

  Already Toshima was selecting daggers at random and slipping them in her obi or inside her kimono. The kimono’s large sleeves she tied back in preparation for the battle. There was a fine, long naginata halberd which she took up and swung around her head twice with expert speed and precision. It was a traditional weapon among women; even court ladies were instructed in its uses, expected as they were to protect their castles and their virtue. Tomoe would not be surprised to learn that Toshima had always been, though secretly, more skilled than most.

  Tomoe strung a bow, and strapped a quiver of iron arrows to her back, beside the bow. The sword of Okio was thrust in her obi where the magician-ninja had kindly placed it there for her. Next to it, she wedged a good dagger. To each hand, she took a yari spear, testing the balance and nodding approval.

  Together, Lady and samurai descended the rafters, and left the house in favor of ruins beyond a hill.

  From the ruined city’s gate, Tomoe and Toshima saw this:

  In the air whirled what seemed a cloud of bats, which on more careful observance were tiny flying monkeys, nocturnal eyes dominating their narrow faces. They swirled about the head of the magician-ninja, who stood frozen with his arms held outward from his sides, one palm facing toward the rokubu, the other facing up. The fanged fliers were held at bay by some unseen barrier, and were angry to be so thwarted.

  About him a ring of larger beasts had formed. They had extremely broad shoulders, much narrower hips, relatively stubby legs, and fatty tails which draped to the ground and dragged like those of lizards. Their heads were so short and wide it seemed they had no heads at all, only humps upon their shoulders with reddened slits for eyes. From these eyes there flowed a continuance of tears.

  The fliers chittered angrily, unable to break the barrier by aerial assault. The shamblers stood shoulder to shoulder, hemming the magician-ninja within. They swayed from side to side and hummed their mournful, eerie dirge.

  This, too, the women beheld before they stepped through the arched gateway: a fat and dirty rokubu with arms above his head and fingers spread, frozen as firmly as the jono priest by the exchange of spells. His face was a twisted mask of glee; he appeared a happy Buddha. Neither rokubu nor magician-ninja revealed awareness of the women in the archway.

  Ruined stone buildings provided the backdrop for the two men facing one another at far ends of the courtyard. Doubtless theirs was a mortal combat, though the women could see no movement, could not fathom the manner of battle.

  The circle of shamblers appeared to be slowly penetrating the barrier made by the magician-ninja. The fliers were managing by equally slow stages to lower themselves closer and closer from above, teeth and talons anxious.

  Toshima began the activity. She tossed three daggers in rapid succession. Three fliers fell against the barrier, and slid to the ground as down the curve of a bell-shaped glass. They flapped awkwardly with knives through their little bodies. The cloud of fliers above the magician-ninja immediately burst in all directions, at first seeming to flee, but circling to investigate the woman who had killed three among their numbers. Above Toshima’s head, they began to reform their obnoxious conglomeration.

  The rokubu’s gaze did not waver. His attention was riveted to the magician-ninja, who also was oblivious to Tomoe and Toshima. The intensity between the two sorcerers caused the women to stand unnoticed; that, or the sorcerers were so ensnared by each others’ powers that the rokubu could not stop the interference, and the magician-ninja could not encourage it.

  Tomoe heaved one of the two yari. The long, straight weapon tore into the back of one of the dirge-sounding shamblers, so that their circle was disheveled and their progress toward the magician-ninja halted. Half the dirge-sounders turned upon Tomoe, revealing those hideous faces squashed upon their shoulders, deformed countenances of parodic sorrow, the eyes draining a constant stream of sad, thick, yellow tears.

  Toshima’s naginata carved wide arcs around herself, providing a barrier as clever as that of the magician-ninja. Her style incorporated both one and two-handed maneuvers. The fliers strove to break this excellent defense. When they tried, she clipped their wings, or sliced them through the middle.

  One of them had fallen, wing completely severed, but ran upon small feet, upright like a human, straight toward Toshima. One of her daggers came quickly to hand, was thrown with deadly aim, pinning the minuscule monster to the ground. It continued to watch her with large, malevolent eyes and scratched the air with tiny razored talons as it died.

  The shamblers did not immediately attack Tomoe. They had divided into two groups, the first group continuing the effort to penetrate the magician-ninja’s barrier, the others lining themselves shoulder to shoulder between Tomoe and the rokubu.

  Her second spear preceded her assault, chucked into a shambler’s belly. The line-up was broken. Then, sword to hand, she cut through their rank, thinking to fight them minimally, and take the rokubu instead. As she came nearer him, she saw that like the magician-ninja, he was not breathing. The sorcerers might each be dead!

  Since the shamblers were unarmed, they provided poor defense against a sword. Tomoe was soon near enough the rokubu to slash his unmoving body.

  The sword of Okio met resistance, and more, something of the barrier stung Tomoe and tossed her back. She was flung through the air and landed stunned upon her quiver of arrows, bruising her spine. Quickly, she looked about, but could not see where her sword had fallen. Regaining her feet, she fought with sheath and dagger, but could not kill the tough shamblers with these minimal weapons. They knew a primitive form of jujitsu, these broad-shouldered creatures from the invisible path, and used their mean skill in a stubborn effort to bring Tomoe down.

  Still fighting near the gate, Toshima had expended all her daggers, so that tiny corpses lay around her feet. Yet there remained a fair sized swarm intent upon breaking the guard of the naginata.

  One of the tiny beasts managed to grab the handle of the long weapon with its feet, clinging as a bird to a perch. Lady Toshima continued to swing her weapon around and around, carving through the swarm. The single clinging flier began to climb down the shaft of the weapon, toward Toshima’s hands. She could not shake it off. Huge eyes glared from the narrow, simian face. When it showed its pointed teeth, she could have sworn the beast had smiled … and still, she could only slash the sky, to guard against others.

  An unexpected knife took the fiend’s life, but Toshima dared not
stop long enough to thank Tomoe, or even to look around and notice from what predicament the samurai had thrown salvation.

  The trick which saved Toshima had left Tomoe with only her empty sheath as weapon, having neither dagger nor sword. A shambler’s tail lashed as would a whip, scoring her fingers—but she did not drop the sheath. She engaged the whipper arm to arm, and it threw her over its shoulder; but Tomoe had left a dizzying knot upon the shambler’s flattened head, then landed on her feet.

  By now she had seen where the violent force of the rokubu’s barrier had tossed her sword. But too many shamblers stood between her and the finer weapon.

  She managed instead to fight her way to a certain shambler’s corpse, from which to reclaim a yari. Sheath thrown aside, she struck with both the sharp and blunt ends of the yari, beat the surrounding shambler’s back, slaying them to either side. When it became evident she would kill them all, the second group of them turned from harrying the frozen magician-ninja to battle Tomoe instead.

  One of the shamblers paused, bent to the ground, claimed Tomoe’s sword. Its thick tail twitched excitedly, and it hurried its shambling steps, swinging the sword with contemptible form.

  Lady Toshima was wearying. There were far more fliers than shamblers, and of them she took large toll; yet they were still thick as gnats above her swinging naginata. The Lady panted and strained, and fought well, but lacked the endurance of tested samurai. The impish flying felons chittered and thrilled, detecting their adversary’s weakening.

  Tomoe climbed the rubble of a collapsed building, and stood on a huge block of stone, parrying against her own sword with the yari, and stabbing at the shamblers who tried to climb up and grab her. She had wounded or slain most of them, most having withdrawn so that they might die to the sound of their own dirge. When she saw Toshima’s danger, Tomoe made a magnificent leap which stole her from the midst of the few remaining and largely dying shamblers; stole her from the thrust of the sword of Okio.

  She landed on the city’s mainwall, where the shamblers could not reach her. Instantly, she brought her bow to bear. One after another, she let the iron arrows fly, and each one found the heart or face of a flier. Lady Toshima made a happy cry, and fought the better when the fliers were unsettled. The ground was strewn with their tiny corpses, some of them twitching in pain or throes of death. Their numbers dwindled quickly from the sky, to the effort of bow and naginata.

  Then the shamblers made an unexpected score. The first yari Tomoe had thrown had been retrieved from the monster it slew—retrieved by another shambler. The monster threw the yari from an angle Tomoe could not see. With the chittering of the fliers and the dirge of the last two shamblers, she could not hear the weapon hurtling toward her back. The first she knew of it was when the spear-point burst out between her ribs having entered midway down her back.

  She did not flinch. She continued to loose arrows until she had no more, and only then did she totter. Below her stood the two remaining shamblers: the one who had thrown the spear, and the one who bore her sword. They waited for her to fall, but they did not appear glad of victory. Yellow tears flowed from red eyes, eyes which peered from the hump of their shoulders. They swayed to and fro, as if mourning Tomoe Gozen.

  Tomoe experienced surprisingly little pain with the yari through her body, its haft at her back, the bloody point sticking out beneath her heart. Miraculously it had missed vital organ, but it seemed fate’s whimsy rather than fortune, for it would only prolong her death from loss of blood. She still had the other yari, and raised it with a shaking, vengeful hand—tossed it into the flat, peering face of the shambler who had wounded her severely. It fell to its knees, then tumbled backward, so that finally only one of the beasts lived and hummed.

  Blood flowed down her front and back. Soon she was too weak to maintain her perch. When she fell, her only weapon was the bow, for which she had no more arrows. She landed awkwardly on her feet, and the landing wrought great pain as the handle through her body was jarred. The shambler swung the sword; Tomoe guarded with the bow. The bow’s string was sliced through, with a loud snap and vibration. Tomoe continued to guard, and tried to poke at eyes with the bow’s tip; but she was much weakened.

  All around lay strange corpses. Near the gate, Toshima leapt and shouted and killed the fliers, not yet aware of the samurai’s terrible injury. In the courtyard, the two sorcerers had still not moved, faced each other dearly. But something new was occurring:

  The jono priest blinked in and out of existence like a flickering candle, perhaps trying to escape, but held by the unflickering rokubu. Tomoe barely had the awareness to notice this development. She had fallen to her knees, kept her guard against the sword with a wood and metal bow. The bow was being hacked in twain. Had Toshima not killed the final flier then, and turned with quickly vanquished joy of victory to see Tomoe Gozen, the samurai might well have died by the hand of the shambler.

  Lady Toshima ran forward without a sound, without a cry, and the naginata carved along the shambler’s spine. It dropped Tomoe’s sword, fell forward on the samurai, pinned itself to her by the point of the yari which protruded from her body. She pushed the beast away, and continued to sit there on her knees with as little motion as possible.

  Suddenly, all around her stood ghosts. The mists of Keiko’s City of Death returned to harm her vision. One ghost in particular bowed and scraped in an excessively solicitous manner. It was Ya Hanada, who said, “You have returned! We missed you, and wished to thank you for dispatching the hairy sacrificers. Ah, life is better now! You will like our city more!”

  There was a smile upon his blurry face, and he held out a sake bottle which Tomoe recognized only too well. She knew that she could rise, and be free of the spear and attendant injury. Instead, she remained on knees, panting, glowering, and said, “I will not die. I am too stubborn.”

  Hanada moved back into the mists, disappointed. The mists, and the ghosts, dispersed. The only person before Tomoe anymore was Lady Toshima, horrified to see the yari sticking out from the samurai’s body.

  “Toshima.”

  The Lady knelt quickly to her retainer’s side. All around them, strange corpses were fading from the courtyard, drawn back onto the invisible path.

  “Toshima.”

  Toshima refused tears. She asked, “What can I do?”

  “Take hold of the spear,” said Tomoe. “Draw it out.”

  Lady Toshima cupped hand to mouth, and would have liked to take refuge in childlike incapacity. But she had grown too much. Shaking, she stood; she stood behind Tomoe. She gripped the yari’s haft in both hands.

  “Draw it straight,” Tomoe instructed, “or it will yet damage me inside.”

  The samurai refused to shout, as she refused to die. The thick shaft pulled free as Tomoe’s jowls shook and her eyes peeled back into her head. It made appalling sucking sounds as Toshima applied all her strength to the task. The samurai grunted, took long heavy breaths, but did not lose consciousness.

  “I must stop the bleeding,” said Toshima, throwing aside the reddened yari. She unwrapped her obi, then opened Tomoe’s kimono, fought an urge to look away from the awful wound in front and back. Tomoe moved as little as possible, while her torso was tightly wrapped in the Lady’s sash. When it was done, Toshima pulled the samurai’s kimono up around the shoulders, and whispered to Tomoe, “The sorcerers are moving.”

  The magician-ninja began to bend, his body twisting backward. He still blinked in and out of existence, almost frantically. The face of the rokubu was intense with fury, no longer simple glee. Hatred strengthened him. Tomoe and Toshima realized the rokubu was winning. The magician-ninja’s face was hidden behind the cloth wrapped about his head, although the eyes were visible, and still unafraid. Tomoe said hoarsely, “His spine will be broken.”

  She was too weak to move, in too much pain to try, and could not encourage Toshima to make any effort to intervene where sorcery was concerned. She said, “There is nothing we can do.”

/>   It was a gruesome thing to watch, the uncomplaining jono priest folded in half, until his head touched his buttocks and his spine made a loudly audible snap. When the deed was finished, the rokubu sprung back to life, and shouted at the heavens, “Noyimo! I have slain your twin!”

  Dark clouds of smoke billowed from Smaller Mountain, shadowing the sky with maleficent shapes and visages. Smaller Mountain rumbled at its roots, as a lion growls at the bottom of its throat, prepared to roar, to leap, to rend.

  No one saw her come, but Noyimo had appeared unexpectedly above her brother. She crouched, and if she was sorrowed by what she beheld, it was hidden behind her mask. Looking toward the rokubu, she formed a strange design by intertwining her fingers, and aimed this mystic weave upon her foe.

  Around Noyimo and her murdered brother, the barrier was reconstructed, stronger than before, glowing, translucent, bronze and pink. The barrier had a definite shape: a temple bell.

  The rokubu spread his fingers, struck violently before himself, flinging some spell at Noyimo. The half-visible bell rang insidiously, and it was plain that the noise was terrible for Noyimo to endure. Yet she held her knit fingers, and crouched by her brother like a protective cat.

  What might have transpired then, no one would ever know, for in the arched gateway appeared an old blind woman, both her eyes white as bone.

  “He has returned,” growled Keiko, cocking her head left and right, her face an unbearable twisted mask of hatred. In the distance, the smaller peak belched smoke and spilled liquid stone.

  Gone was the maniacal pleasantness of the mischievous woman Tomoe had met before. Gone was the child in an oldster’s body. She spoke with the voice of spite and anger, and commanded, “Tell me it is true! He returns!”

  “She cannot see!” Toshima whispered. Keiko turned her blind face to where the two women knelt, one wounded near to death, the other near to sorrow.