“This one…” she muttered, thrusting and slashing at invisible opponents, “this one is perfect…!”
“There’s a note in here…” Godfrey called out, fishing through several various bits and pieces at the bottom of the box and pulling out a small, rolled-up piece of paper, tied with a similar white ribbon.
“What… where…?” She demanded, everything else forgotten in that moment as she almost leaped across the space between them and snatched it from his hands.
“You – you wanna give me that thing while you read?” He suggested, ducking out of range of the swinging blade and watching her almost slice her own throat as she simultaneously tried to keep hold of the katana and open the tiny scroll.
“I’ll… I’ll put it away…” she decided warily, not particularly imagining he might damage anything but nevertheless suddenly very protective of it as she took up the saya once more and carefully slid the katana’s blade home.
Placing the sheathed sword back inside the box, she was then able to unfurl the note and pay it proper attention. The words were handwritten – she wasn’t sure Honda had ever used a computer – and they filled the page in neat, spidery script that said much about the care and patience of the writer.
My dear Tatsuko…
I know not when you will read this, but I feel it will not be soon enough. There is much I cannot explain to you… so much that cannot be explained in mere words. I have lived a long life and I have trained many during this time, but none have come close to displaying the skills you have shown. I have always believed that fate brought me to your town… to find and to train you, so far from my own homeland. I hope that in time you will forgive me that I did not warn you of what was to come… I pray that in time you will understand why I could not.
There are some who walk this earth… a very few… who sometimes sense the future before it happens. I have met some of these people over the years, and I myself am one of them. Why have I never told you this? Because your training was far too important to jeopardise by being thought of as a crazy old man. What I have seen of your future is limited – little more than glimpses of fire and death – but I have also seen hope… hope that there is a chance to regain what by now you will have lost. I cannot lie: the road I have seen for you is a hard one indeed… but never doubt there is hope.
This weapon has remained in my family for generations. With no heir, there exists none more fitting it should pass to than you… you, who have studied well the history of the samurai and culture of Bushido. This weapon is Sōshū Sadamune, and you will know what that means. It carried a name once in the service of my ancestors. Name it again now for yourself, and it will serve you well. It is all I have to give, and I give it freely. Like the training, use it well and it will save your life.
I do not know if we shall ever meet again, yet I remain hopeful.
Live well, daughter of dragons… find strength in the way of the samurai.
Godfrey, standing beside her and unashamedly reading over her shoulder, glanced up and was surprised to see that there were tears in her eyes as Nev finished the note and crumpled it into a ball in her right fist.
“He knew…” she almost choked, tears streaming down her cheeks now as the words’ full impact sunk home. “He knew something was going to happen… and he did nothing…!”
“You sure that was for you?” Godfrey asked carefully, trying to be helpful. “That wasn’t your name at the top of the note: it was written for someone called ‘Tatsuko’…” To his credit, he made a reasonable job of the pronunciation into the bargain.
“That is me,” she snapped angrily, casting the crumpled note aside and dabbing self-consciously at her damp eyes (although the question had at least broken the mood and diverted her attention for a moment). It was a nickname he called me… Tatsuko… in his language, it means ‘Dragon Child’…”
“‘Daughter of Dragons’…” he mused softly, regarding her with a curious eye, “…that’s you, is it? Why dragons…?”
Godfrey was genuinely interested – dragons were a huge part of Osterlands culture and mythology after all – and he’d also come to realise that Nev tended to forget about her problems when she was concentrating on other issues, as if her mind was better able to remain calm and focussed when there were puzzles or problems to be overcome.
“It’s my name…” she repeated with vague exasperation, understanding that there was no way he could know what she was talking about but not in the mood for stories. “None of this will make much sense to either of you,” she added, sitting herself on the barrel once more and burying her head in her hands, “but my family on my father’s side has Icelandic heritage. Iceland is a small, volcanic island covered in fjords and glaciers, and in Iceland, family names aren’t like ours… instead, they simply take your father’s first name with ‘son’ or ‘daughter’ added to the end.
“My father should have been called Dreki Andersson – it was what Grandpa Anders always wanted – but my grandmother insisted the family take more Australian names to match their new home, and Dad became Drake Anderson instead. I don’t remember much more about it: dad never talked about it, and they divorced when I was very young.”
“And you…?” He ventured, sensing there was more to the story.
“And me…?” She asked with sadness. “Dreki is Icelandic for ‘dragon’, and by that same tradition, I wouldn’t be called Nev Anderson: my family name should be ‘Drekansdottir’…”
“Daughter of Dragons…”
“Literally…” she agreed darkly, glancing up at him for the first time. “My trainer – the one who wrote the note – started calling me Tatsuko soon after he’d worked out what my ancestral name would’ve been. I thought it was just a harmless nickname all these years… it seems now that maybe I was wrong about that: that he really meant something by it.”
“Seems like he was right…” Godfrey shrugged, taking a step back almost inadvertently as she lifted the sword from the box once more and turned it over in her hands, examining the gold filigree of the engraved dragons in more details.
“If he really believed something was going to happen, why didn’t he warn me?” She asked with bitterness through clenched teeth, Honda’s perceived betrayal as awful in her mind as Percy’s. “If he really believed, why did he do nothing to help me?”
“Dunno about doin’ nuthin’…” Godfrey observed in a gentle voice as she glanced up sharply, mid-way through drawing the blade once more from its saya. “…Gave y’ that sword there, didn’t he…? I’ve seen what you can do with a piece of wood…!”
VII
Difficult Journeys
They rested for three hours, Godfrey and Lester managing to spend at least half that time sleeping as Nev sat alone and despondent against a far wall of the barn, completely confused regarding the sword she hadn’t been able to put down. She’d spent the entire time alternating between staring at the katana and at the crumpled note Honda had left, and at the end of it all she was no closer to finding any rational explanation than when she’d first opened the package.
The only thing she was certain of was that her earlier statement was entirely correct: the sword was about as close to perfection as any edged weapon could be. One extremely light touch of a finger had told her the blade was razor sharp, and staring along its length she could clearly see that there was not a single blemish or imperfection. That it was a Sadamune (surely, Honda wouldn’t have lied about something like that?) made the fact that she was holding it even more unbelievable.
A different wagon entirely had arrived at the farm around dusk, this one a large, six-wheeled affair pulled by a four-horse team. Instead of a canvas cover, this one’s cargo bed was a fully-enclosed wooden box with small, louvered windows set into the sides and a low hatchway up front allowing access to an open-sided driving position that was provided with an overhanging roof as basic protection against the elements. Everything was painted in dull green, over which was stencilled a single name
in white: ARLEIGH.
“Better transport to take us the rest of the way,” Godfrey explained with slightly bleary eyes, having been woken prematurely by the rumble of its arrival. “Safer transport: Arleigh here’s known to the local watch at Welshport and they’re used to him comin’ and goin’ at all hours with goods and supplies, both for the merchant fleet there and for Harald’s war galleys over at Long Pier.”
“Can he be trusted…?” Nev asked suspiciously as she stood near the open barn door and Godfrey freshened up just outside, making use of a large bucket of cold water standing on a thick, off-cut log perhaps a metre high.
“Could you have asked that any louder?” He snapped, more surprised at the question than offended as he splashed water over his face and rubbed it into his eyes and beard. “I don’t think they heard y’ down at the town square.”
“I – I’m sorry…” she blurted, realising after the fact how rude that question must’ve sounded.
“These are people either I or other Ostermen have worked with before, and we know who we can trust: mistakes tend to cost lives in this business.”
“Of course… I didn’t mean…”
“I know…” he nodded with a dismissive wave, softening his tone as he took a grubby towel hanging on a nail in the barn wall and dried his face and hands. “You’re nervous, and all this is very new – I understand that.” He stopped for a moment, turning to face her with hands on hips. “Do you trust me…?”
That question left her momentarily lost for words, and (damn it!) she felt her cheeks flush again.
“I – I… yes… yes, I trust you…”
“Then you don’t need to worry about them, do y’?” He grinned simply, as if that was all settled. “I’ll not see anything bad happen to y’ while I’m still drawin’ a breath, and with that there ‘pig-sticker’ of yours, it’d be a brave bugger indeed that tried anything funny anyway.”
“You lot ready to go, there?” Arleigh called from the other side of the horses, in the middle of checking their running gear. “We’ve some way to go yet, and the Welshport Watch have been showin’ a tendency to lock the gates at midnight of late. I’d prefer not to be caught out for the rest o’ the night, and I’d warrant neither would the rest ‘o ye!”
Hammond Arleigh was a bear of a man in his late thirties. Huge and round and looking like there was some serious muscle underneath his rotund form, his tiny, bloodshot eyes, thick moustache and mutton-chop sideburns decorating a face that was otherwise dominated by his huge and decidedly bulbous red nose.
“Some of us are ready…” Lester chimed in unhelpfully, already seated on the bench next to the driver with his ubiquitous crossbow across his lap.
“We’re comin’, brother…” Godfrey called cheerfully in return. “…just collecting our gear…”
“Yer no brother o’ mine, Godfrey Westacre,” Arleigh pointed out genially as he hoisted himself up into the driver’s position, “…and a good thing that is, too! My brother’s a pig of a man I’d nary take a leak on if he were burnin’…!”
“Charming…” Nev muttered to herself, frowning at the unpleasant imagery that comment conjured up as Godfrey dived inside the barn and came out with two armloads of packs and belongings, including Nev’s duffel bag and the lacquered box the katana had come in.
“You’re a gentle soul indeed, Hammond,” he shot back with a chuckle as she hurriedly took her gear from him and hoisted the bag over one shoulder. “You’re happy to suffer the Toad up front?”
“I like a song now and then,” Arleigh shrugged with a dry smile of his own, “and I can box his ears well enough if he gets out o’ hand.”
“We’ll ride in the back then,” Godfrey nodded in agreement, striding across the space between the barn and the wagon at a speed that forced Nev to run to catch up. “You takin’ the Raised Road?”
“None quicker I know of, and plenty of traffic these days between Welshport and the western Blacklands, meanin’ less random patrols… most o’ the buggers can’t be arsed checkin’ papers when it means stopping a hundred wagons a day.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Godfrey called out from the rear of the wagon as he opened the large, double doors and clambered up inside, making use of a set of built-in steps that hung down from beneath the cargo bed. “Up y’ come!” He called pleasantly, extending a hand for Nev and hoisting her up into the rear before closing the doors behind her.
The cargo area was remarkably spacious, even with quite a number of crates of various sizes stacked and tied down within, and a long, low box had been laid along each side at the rear for use as benches, each topped by surprisingly-comfortable cushions stuffed with straw. After stowing their gear securely between two crates toward the middle of the wagon, Nev and Godfrey took seats on opposite sides and he banged lightly on the wooden wall with his fist.
“Good to go back here, Hammond!” He called out, and the horses fussed and grumbled and moved off a few seconds later at a reasonable pace, setting out along the dirt track leading away from the farm and back down toward the main road.
“It’s a fine weapon, that’s for sure…” Godfrey observed from across the rear of the cargo bed as Nev once again fidgeted with the sheathed katana, still unable to put it down for more than a few minutes at a time.
“‘Fine’ isn’t the word…” she muttered, correcting him for a second time regarding the sword and this time at least managing a half-smile. “The blade is pristine…!” She continued, drawing the weapon fully this time and giving it another once-over before very carefully reversing the hilt and offering it across to Godfrey. “Almost seven hundred years old and there’s not a single mark on it!”
“It’s definitely clean,” he conceded, dubious and frowning over her statement. “How can you be sure it’s so old?”
In that note, Honda – my trainer – said that it had been made by Sōshū Sadamune. He was a master swordsmith who was born… seven hundred and nineteen years ago…” she explained, doing the math quickly in her head, adding quickly “…in my world, anyway. He only lived for about fifty years, so if it is one of his swords, then it must be that old.”
“He must have been a great swordsmith to still be remembered so long after his death,” Godfrey observed, vaguely impressed.
“One of the best,” she nodded enthusiastically. “I studied a lot about these – they’re called katana – and Sadamune was right up there with the greatest of them all. Only one man – a guy called Masamune – was thought to be any better, and he was Sadamune’s father… either by blood or through adoption, although no one’s sure which, nowadays…”
“It looks a lot like some of the blades you find up north, although I’ve never seen anything this good in the Sun Empire. There are kings who’d pay a lifetime’s wages for something as well-made as this.”
“I just wish he’d told me!” She sighed sadly, mind veering back onto the less pleasant topic of Honda’s note. “Maybe I could’ve done something to not end up here… like just stay at school instead of taking off with Percy.”
“So this other girl – the ‘Blue Witch’ – was your friend, yes?” He asked with interest, handing the katana back and watching her sheath it carefully as she nodded in dark agreement. “And she’s from your world, rather than ours… d’you have any idea why she would’ve done this to you? Why she’s doing any of this?”
“Not a clue,” Nev shook her head sadly, feeling that terrible sense of betrayal once more. “She said she wanted to go for a ‘nature ride’, led me to that clearing, then all hell broke loose without warning: weird voices in my head, and her talking back to them…”
“Voices in your head…?” Godfrey frowned, checking which pocket he kept his tiny prayer book in and fighting an urge to touch his forehead in the sign of The Shard as superstition momentarily got the better of him.
“I don’t remember much…” she continued, laying the sheathed sword gently beside her on the cushioned bench. “I could hear a voice ins
ide my mind, but there was no one else there I could see at the time. It said something about how I wasn’t any use, although I don’t know what for. It said I was… um… ‘precedent’, I think – prescient? – and that I couldn’t be ‘controlled’…” she shrugged. “Then it ordered that swordsman to kill both of us…”
“It ordered a Blackwatcher to kill the witch?”
“Aye… uh… yes…” she agreed, faltering momentarily as she frowned over her unconscious use of his terminology. “Then Perce fell over, the shotgun went off – by accident, I’m pretty sure – and the rider was killed. It was only after that I realised she’d been working with whatever it was to bring me there in the first place. That was when I took off…”
“And you ran into me…” he finished with a grin.
“And I ran into you…” she nodded.
They shared a silent but important moment then, intently matching each other’s gaze with a greater openness that hadn’t been there before… with a deeper level of trust that hadn’t existed before.
“Thank you…” she murmured eventually, glancing down at her feet then.
“For…?”
“For everything…” she admitted, knowing it was something she should’ve said a long time ago. “For saving my life… for coming back to rescue me again when I was too stupid to listen to reason… for looking after me…” she lifted her eyes once more, and he was surprised to see that they were moist with painful honesty. “For everything…”
“You’ll get home again…” he stated with more certainty than Nev would’ve thought possible. “I don’t know how, yet… or when… but I can feel it in me bones: you will get back to your world somehow.”
“I wish I could believe that…” she sighed, shaking faintly as she struggled to hold her emotions in check.
“That’ll come in time…” Godfrey assured, and there was only sincerity in his tone and expression now. “You’re a lot stronger than you think… you just need to know it. I can see it, and I reckon that Honda could see it too, or he wouldn’t have given you the sword. My ma used to say that everything happens for a reason – the damned Brotherhood says the same thing all the time, for different reasons – and maybe… maybe it’s just that before you get home, there’s a few things need to happen first… things that need a fine blade, a sharp eye and a good heart.”
Dragonfire Page 17
