Moonshadow paced backwards away from Akira, then rummaged in his back-mounted bedroll. Akira watched him intently, frowning. Moon took his sword's scabbard from the bedroll, sheathed his blade then carefully mounted it on his left hip. He turned and faced the castle, sinking to his knees, rocking back on his heels in the mud.
'No shinobi tricks now,' Akira took a step forward, 'this is a clash of swords!'
Approaching at an angle, Akira strode towards Moon, who remained on his heels, seeming to ignore his advancing enemy. Moon rested his palms on his thighs and stared off beyond the distant moat. His eyes grew dreamy and he seemed unprepared for combat. Worse still, by kneeling on the ground he had given Akira a height advantage. Akira eyed him suspiciously, then, deciding to take the opportunity anyway, he accelerated into a charge. His sword swung up and over his head, ready for a powerful descending cut.
His target let him come. At the last possible, critical moment, Moon grasped his sword with one hand and his sheath with the other and turned his knees, using the mud to slide around so he could face his attacker. In a flash he rose up onto one foot. Planting his weight firmly, he drew the pommel of his sword towards Akira.
The man in black bore down on him, sword poised to fall. Moonshadow sprang into a low angular stance, his blade and scabbard parting in an explosive fast draw. His sword rose with lightning speed, swishing as it traced the shape of a crescent moon. The first third of its blade bit into Akira's raised forearms before he could swing his strong downward cut.
On impact Moon's sword gave a double clunk which told him that under those long black sleeves, Akira's forearms were protected by armour.
No shinobi tricks? Moon cursed under his breath. Akira had come prepared for anything with a trick of his own.
He heard Snowhawk stir and let out a cry of pain. His throat began to close with tension, but he willed himself to concentrate. If he lost his focus now, Akira would slay him, then take her to Silver Wolf and the unthinkable would befall her.
With deep scraping sounds armour and sword ground together. In a split second Moon relived his last duel with Groundspider. But that had been a rehearsal; this was life and death. Akira's cold eyes bored into him. Moon avoided them and stared at Akira's sword shoulder. A harder target than the man's head, but –
Taking a deep breath, he made his decision.
He set his teeth and pushed with everything he had, channelling all his strength and bodyweight into his sword to shove Akira back as he had under the brewery tower. He needed but a small gap between them in order to pull back his blade and strike with decisive speed. Moonshadow roared as he finished the great push.
Rammed backwards with unexpected power, Akira's feet slid and he lost his balance on the muddy ground. As he narrowly avoided stumbling, the gap Moon had needed briefly opened. He took a long single stride then struck once, hard, with a powerful cut aimed straight for his enemy's sword shoulder. His weapon's tip met Akira's jacket and there was a dull snick, the sound of a blade cutting fabric. Akira shuddered and both fighters froze on the spot. Moon stood fast, watching, with his sword extended and its tip buried in Akira's shoulder.
Akira stood motionless, gripping his own weapon tightly, eyes fixed with concentration. Then he stepped back, pulling his shoulder clear of Moon's sword. Akira swayed. His weapon tumbled from his hands. He sank to one knee in the mud.
'Congratulations,' Akira said tersely, clutching his shoulder. 'Resorting to the obvious! Crafty pup, you pulled it off.'
'Thanks,' Moon shook off his sword and sheathed it on his hip.
Akira closed his eyes. Pressing his wound with both hands, he fell sideways into the mud. Soft rain began to fall. Akira slowly scooped a handful of mud and used it to staunch the bleeding from the cut in his shoulder.
His chest heaving, Moon wiped sweat and grime from his eyes and blinked at his fallen enemy. He'd been sorely tempted to kill Akira, but now he understood what Mantis had been trying to tell him. Whether done with so-called honour or not, a wise man found no glory in killing. Enemy or not, Akira was brave and skilful. A professional spy, like Moon, cunning and inventive. He had simply been on the other side, that was all. Moon had been forced to put him out of the game, just as Akira had Jiro, but he had not scattered this grain of life.
He could hear his teacher's voice in his head. Even the sword that serves justice is still an instrument of death. Moonshadow nodded. To live with regrets as Mantis did was the burden of all warriors with true hearts and minds. Regrets! At least so far, he had created none. Mantis would be proud of him, and happy for him.
'Don't try to follow me, Akira-San,' Moon bowed to his foe. 'In overcoming you, I was simply lucky. But you're wounded now, so next time, I won't need luck.' He smiled grimly, his eyes flicking to the crumpled form of Jiro. 'By the way, Akira-San, nice shuriken throw!'
Moonshadow ran to Snowhawk. Raising her from the mud, he cradled her in his arms. She was breathing and her eyelids fluttered. Moon checked over his shoulder. Akira lay still, gripping his cut shoulder tightly. His face was drawn with pain, but he gave Moonshadow the faintest hint of a nod.
Feet splashed the mud behind him. Moon turned his head to the sounds. A stooped town watch man with grey hair was struggling up the hill, using his closed paper umbrella as a walking stick.
'Young sir,' the man called anxiously, 'is it over? Is it safe now?' He looked at the debris and bodies strewn on the muddy hillside. 'What a mess you've made of our town, that is . . . well, what I mean to say . . . thank the gods you're unhurt!'
Moon fished quickly in his belt with one hand and pulled out a string of silver coins. He caught the town watchman's eye then threw him the money.
'That's for the damage. And to pay a doctor. See to the man in black.' Moon pointed at Akira then sighed, nodding at the motionless Jiro. 'The gangster, too.'
'Not this young lady also?' The watchman frowned.
'I'll see to her. If anyone from the castle asks you, tell them we took the road to the highway,' Moon flashed him a stern look, 'understand?'
The watchman tested the weight of the coins with one hand. His wrinkled face lit up. Moon had thrown him a great deal of money.
'It will all be done, young sir,' he said eagerly, 'before all the kami, all the old gods, I swear. Oh, and to Amida Buddha himself too, I promise!'
Moon looked down at Snowhawk as the watchman turned away. Under his breath he prayed, 'Please, Lord Buddha, don't guide this one to paradise yet.'
Tangled, dirty hair hung over Snowhawk's face. She was breathing, but in a fitful, half-drugged sleep. In the grip of the potion. At least, Moon thought, if it was of a common formula, its effects would be short-lived. She would need water, lots of it. He sighed heavily. Partly with relief because she was alive, but also for what he had to do, regardless of her condition. Or wishes.
He gently untangled the leather thong from her hair and slipped it over her head. Snowhawk opened one eye. She saw the thong dangling from his fist and tried without success to raise one hand.
'Nooo,' Snowhawk pleaded, her voice low and weak.
'Sorry,' Moon put the thong around his neck and fed the plans into his jacket.
'If I return without them, I'm as good as dead,' Snowhawk whispered.
'You're not returning,' he said firmly, 'with or without them!' He hugged her to his chest. 'My people don't kill agents for failure, they retrain them. You're coming with me.'
'All shadow clans kill spies who fail,' she muttered. 'Or make them kill themselves.'
'Maybe so,' Moon paused, then decided to take another big gamble. 'But I am not of a shadow clan. I am of the Grey Light, the Shogun's secret service. Come with me; let me beg my masters that you might join us. Do your masters deserve your loyalty? They might have trained you well, but one day they'll slay you for a mistake. We never would.' His voice broke with emotion. 'Do you hear me? We never would!'
He struggled to his feet, dragging Snowhawk to hers. Her legs buckled immediately an
d he barely held her up.
'They'll hunt me,' she gasped.
'No,' he said stubbornly. 'They will believe you dead, or my prisoner.'
Moon looked into her face. She opened one eye, gave a faint smile then fell back to sleep. He threw her over his shoulder and started across the hillside.
With the fighting over, shutters were opening along the streets that faced the battlefield. Wary-faced locals reappeared, inspecting the damage and the wounded. As he moved carefully through the mud, Moon's eyes quickly swept the hill.
The tallest samurai's horse was motionless and looked dead, but to Moon's amazement its rider was alive. Moonshadow's sharp ears could make out the fellow's groans as two brewery workers started tugging at the pile of debris that half-covered the man and his horse. Moon shook his head. The spongy mud had probably saved him from being crushed, but he would have broken arms and ribs at the very least.
His colleague, the smaller samurai, was being freed from beneath his fallen horse. A muscular farmer and three women were helping the exhausted animal to stand, while a merchant's labourer dragged the samurai clear. The smaller samurai's leg looked broken.
Moon heard hooves thrumming loudly on wooden planks so he peered over the moat to the castle's main gate. Two by two, a column of men rode out, perhaps twenty samurai in all, the leading pair carrying spears.
He scrambled away as fast as the mud would allow. Carrying the now drowsy, mumbling girl, Moonshadow ran the length of the rich merchants' street. When he reached the end of the road and the town itself, he slipped unseen into a lane between two houses then out, across a thin track and into a dense pine forest.
Two new problems nagged at his mind as he hurried on, teeth locked together hard with the effort of carrying Snowhawk.
First, would the Grey Light Order accept Snowhawk, make her one of their own? If she turned to them, would they ever fully trust one who had betrayed her own shadow clan? And what of his part in her defection? He was breaking rules, violating protocols of secrecy, true, but she also represented a great opportunity for his order, and therefore for the Shogun. If Snowhawk truly turned, she would be able to tell them much about their secret enemies, perhaps even about the rebellion!
He thought of Eagle's wisdom, Mantis's compassion and Heron's caring heart. They just might do it! To save her life, it was worth taking the risk and, if all else failed, he would plead with them to have the White Nun visit and assess Snowhawk. The White Nun's astonishing insight would tell his masters what his heart already knew: Snowhawk was an unmet friend, both to him and to the Grey Light Order. It was destiny, the kind of unexpected twist of fate that Brother Eagle had tried explaining to him, and he felt it from the pit of his stomach to the crown of his head. Once she was conscious, he would try to win her cooperation with his plan, to convince her to take the risk. He prayed she would listen, that she would trust him enough to gamble everything on his judgement.
His second nagging concern was intangible. What had he forgotten? There was something, lurking at the edge of his memory, some unresolved matter. With his mind so full of the girl and her needs right now, it would not reveal itself to him. He had the plans. For now at least, his foes were neutralised. He was even turning an enemy agent. But what was the stone left unturned? Was it one that could crush him if he didn't identify it quickly?
The soft rain stopped. At the top of the first rise, Moon set Snowhawk down gently under a wide, towering pine tree. Curled on a thick bed of pine needles, she snored contentedly while he caught his breath and looked out over Fushimi for the last time. No one appeared to be following. Sounds came from deep inside the town; muddy galloping, a gruff samurai shouting orders, but trees and buildings hid the activity.
Moon saw a trace of nearby movement and he leaned forward, squinting hard at it. He grinned. Could he believe his eyes? The temple cat! It stood on a low stone wall near the mouth of the lane, staring in his direction. Saying farewell, perhaps? Moonshadow shook his head. Perhaps destiny had granted him two unmet friends. But there was no room now on his shoulders; this one he would have to leave behind.
He shouldered Snowhawk again and struck out for the rendezvous point, but anxiety clutched at him as he pressed on. He grumbled inwardly, hating this feeling.
What was it? What thread had he left untied?
TWENTY
The greatest
challenge
He struggled uphill. As the pines thinned out and white rocky outcrops appeared, Moon knew the rendezvous point was not far away. He put Snowhawk down beside a thin stream that cut through the rocky shelf.
With the bamboo water phial from his pack, he wet her face, neck and wrists, reviving her enough to take a drink. Moon watched Snowhawk drain the remaining water so eagerly that half of it spilled down her chin. He refilled the small bamboo beaker again and again, for Snowhawk was remarkably thirsty. The more she drank, the more alert she became. After drinking several phials of the icy mountain water, she crawled to the stream itself and drank even more. As she quenched her thirst, he studied the surrounding terrain. Between two rather stunted pine trees, Moon spotted the mouth of a small chalk cave.
At last Snowhawk sat up unaided, wiping her mouth. She opened her eyes wide then looked at Moonshadow. He could tell her head was clearing, but it was also obvious that the potion had left her seriously weakened.
'Welcome back,' he smiled at her. 'Just in time. I would have had trouble carrying you over this last stretch.' He pointed uphill. 'If the map I memorised wasn't monkey-stained, just over that ridge lies a rocky gorge. This stream probably feeds into the river that runs through it. The opposite bank of that gorge is where we'll be met.'
'Monkey-stained?' Snowhawk rubbed her eyes. 'What kind of outfit do you work for?'
'Forget it,' he grinned. 'While you get your legs back, we're going to rest a little and talk about that outfit.' He turned and pointed to the cave. 'In there, for safety.' She peered at the cave mouth, looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. He held out his hand. 'Besides, either we rest now, or you carry me.'
They struggled together to the chalk cave, which turned out to be about half the size of his rented room in Fushimi. Moonshadow set her down carefully, wary of the low, irregular ceiling, then sagged to the chalk-peppered earth beside her, rubbing his aching thighs so their muscles wouldn't go into spasm.
'Remember what I told you?' He looked earnestly at Snowhawk. 'If you want to join us, the Grey Light Order – well, if they let you, which I believe they will – you'll never have to fear being killed by your own people, only by an enemy in the field. Everyone, samurai, shinobi, merchant or farmer, lives with that risk anyway!'
Snowhawk was silent for some time, appearing to weigh his words. Then she cleared her throat. 'Very well. Tell me about them. If you truly trust me, and want me to trust you too, then tell me of the Grey Light Order. Not what they do. Who they are.'
Moonshadow took a deep breath. His convictions about her had better be right, he thought. Slowly at first, he described his trainers one by one, growing more open and daring with his disclosures as he went on. He watched Snowhawk's attentive face, dappled by the shadows of the cave, as he told her of those special conversations and moments in which he had truly come to know each of his teachers. Who they were, not what they did. She laughed at Moon's stories of Groundspider; at his practical jokes, perverse pride in his size and appetite, and utter inability to cross moats using mizu gumo. She fell silent then nodded solemnly as he recounted Eagle's words concerning the unforeseeable hand of destiny and the importance of trusting one's instincts.
'That you belong with us, and should come home with me now . . .' Moon told her, '. . . these are probably the strongest instincts I've ever felt.'
Snowhawk glanced at him, tears welling in her eyes. 'Home?' she said. 'I am of Clan Fuma. They are powerful and skilled, but I have never thought of their mountain fortress as home.' She wiped one eye with a knuckle and looked away.
He nodded
and went on. She was astonished and clearly impressed when he revealed that Badger, the archivist and arch-curmudgeon, was in fact the lauded scholar Hosokawa, who had turned his back on fame over a matter of conscience. Snowhawk shook her head, evidently fascinated, as he told of the wild man that Mantis had been and the truer warrior he had become through acknowledging his regrets and embracing com passion. Finally, when he spoke of discussing loneliness that day in the sunlit garden, and of all that Heron meant to him, Snowhawk hung her head and cried.
Moon put his hand on her shoulder, biting his lip, unsure what to say or do next. She wiped her cheeks, then stared up at him with a vulnerable smile.
'I knew you were brave in combat,' Snowhawk sniffed, 'but I see now that you also have another kind of courage. I have heard your words, and I will try to be as brave.' She rubbed her nose with the back of her sleeve. 'I've never heard of a shadow clan like your people. I will come with you. I will throw myself on their mercy. What happens then . . .' she raised her chin proudly and a flash of tenacity lit her eyes, 'is up to destiny.'
Moon let them both recover for another ten minutes, then they left the cave and pressed on together, side by side, up the hill and over the boulder-studded ridge. Thrilled and relieved as he was at Snowhawk's decision, the unsettling idea that he had forgotten something continued to plague him. The gorge appeared below them.
'Yes,' Snowhawk said wearily, taking big gulps of air. Then she gripped his sleeve. 'I'm still a little confused. It must be the potion. But I think I sense someone. A shinobi.' She shook her head, tossing mud-streaked hair. 'I think.'
Moonshadow Page 15
