The Year of the Dragon Omnibus

by James Calbraith

  “Nothing’s happening,” Bran said when a good half an hour had passed.

  The white smoke hovered over Nagomi’s body like a dark spirit.

  “Look, the sticks!” Satō whispered, pointing. The pieces of carved bamboo turned solid black, obsidian. Bran grabbed them and scowled.

  “Hot!”

  “Get them out!”

  The boy threw the sticks out the window. They fell into the stream with a hiss of steam. The black smoke disappeared; the air in the room was clear again.

  Torishi was still in a trance, but his movements were slower now, more relaxed, and the beating was steady again. She could once again make out words in his chanting.

  Ashim puhara,

  kamui akah kata

  E-kom pashuhi

  Tu kamui sonko,

  Re kamui sonko,

  Anokote!

  He stopped and dropped his head until his chin touched his chest. He rocked back and forth for a moment yet, eyes closed, murmuring some quiet prayer.

  The priestess moaned and stirred. Blood started returning to her cheeks. She opened her eyes and gasped for air.

  “Nagomi!” Satō leapt to her feet. The priestess winced, but smiled weakly.

  Bran came up to the bench where the priestess lay. He took her hand and held it tightly, not saying a word.

  “I’m... sorry...” Nagomi said with effort, “for worrying... you.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” said Satō with visible effort. She turned to the bear-man.

  “Is she really alright?”

  He nodded heavily.

  “See for yourself.”

  Satō uncovered the place where the sickle blade pierced Nagomi’s chest. There was barely a trace of a wound, little more than a white scar she traced down with her finger.

  “Are you… are we safe?” the priestess asked.

  “We’re safe,” said Bran. “Here, have some water.”

  The priestess lapped up a few mouthfuls from a clay pot and lay back on the bench, closing her eyes.

  “You must rest now. We’ll tell you about everything later,” he added.

  “It looks like we are even, Torishi-sama,” Satō said, bowing before their host.

  “The Spirits repaid their debt,” the bear-man said, shaking his head. He leaned towards her. He smelled of raw meat and soil. He touched her arm with a long, dirty finger. She fought the urge to step back.

  “You too are wounded.”

  He took a small container from the box and handed it to her. It reeked of animal fat.

  “Put it on the wound. Kudzu root. Keeps it clean.”

  She looked at Bran, slightly panicked. The boy glanced at Nagomi.

  “He helped her — maybe he can help you, too.”

  The blood-soaked and tattered sleeve of her kimono fell apart in her hands when she tried to roll it up. She tentatively scooped some of the white goo and put it onto the red, swollen wound. It stung, but she endured in silence.

  The noon turned to afternoon, and the inside of the hut grew even darker and gloomier with all the smoke and soot. Nagomi was still asleep, but her skin had a healthy glow again, and her breathing was regular. Satō had her arm bandaged and was eating the last of Torishi’s fish, while Bran devoured another portion of cured venison. He caught her repulsed gaze.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” he said. “I’m not a Sun Priest. I haven’t had meat for a month. Why don’t you eat meat, anyway?”

  “I… I just don’t,” she replied, realizing she had only a faint idea of the reason. “It’s gross.”

  Torishi handed them each a wooden cup filled with some misty liquid. She smelled it suspiciously.

  “Another medicine?”

  The bear-man chuckled.

  “Yes, medicine… for the head.”

  She sipped. It had a bitter and fermented taste, like bad saké. She gulped the cup in one go and felt the warmth spreading throughout her body. She reached out for seconds, but Torishi took the cup from her.

  “One is enough.”

  “So…” Bran started. “What happened to your people? Did they all die from this sickness?”

  Torishi shook his head again.

  “That was just the end. First the Valley People kept on coming… always up, always deeper into the forest,” he said in a monotone, resigned voice, staring at the flames. “Cutting down trees… building homes of wood and paper… planting fields… hunting our game… taking our women.”

  He raised a hand to the light. His arm was covered in ancient scars and burns.

  “They had metal and fire, and the Bear People only had wood and stone and claw. After they took our land they started hunting us.”

  “Like the hunters we fought today,” said Bran. “But why hunt you?”

  “Our insides hold powerful magic. Or so the Valley People believe. But only if cut from a bear. That’s what the jade necklace was for — to seal me in bear; strong but dumb. Easy to trap.”

  “And they would’ve left you to starve?” asked Satō.

  “Bad luck to slay one of us. Much better to let one die of hunger.”

  “Somehow I… I knew I had to remove the necklace,” said Bran. “Was that you?”

  Torishi nodded.

  “It’s a call from one Kumaso hunter to another. But there are no more Kumaso hunters in the mountain.” He looked into the darkness. “And the Valley People were deaf to our calls.”

  Nagomi stirred and moaned. Torishi touched her head with a fatherly gesture and the girl calmed down.

  “You asked whether Nagomi was a priestess,” remembered Satō.

  “Your priests were the chief of our enemies. They rallied the Valleys against us. But… it doesn’t matter now. The crimes of others are not her fault.”

  He paused. “My daughter had fox hair, too.”

  Satō blinked, surprised.

  “A Dejima child? In this forest?” Satō could think of no other reason.

  “Many fox-haired cubs laughed and played in this village before the Blistering Sickness silenced them forever.”

  He lowered his head and let out a long, sad grunt, then looked back up at them with a smile.

  “No, let’s not dwell on the past. You must be tired.”

  It was still early, but Satō felt weak and weary. She nodded. Torishi stood up and moved Nagomi gingerly onto the raised bed.

  He unrolled a couple of old boar skins on the floor.

  “I need to check the traps,” he said, heading for the door. “Maybe catch a fish.”

  He left the house. Satō ran her fingers through the bristles and a few bugs skittered onto the floor. She recoiled in disgust.

  “Blistering Disease,” she murmured.

  “What?” asked Bran.

  “What if it’s still here? Aren’t you worried?”

  “Don’t be silly, nobody dies of smallpox anymore.”

  “Not here. At least Nagomi’s vaccinated, but I…”

  “You’ll be fine. The disease must be long gone.”

  It wasn’t very reassuring, but there was little else she could do. He’s our host, she thought with her eyes closed. And saved Nagomi’s life. I have to take what he has to offer.

  She saw Bran shake the skin with a swift motion and tried to do the same, but a needle of pain pierced her arm.

  “Are you alright?” the boy asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  She lay down on the boar skin, carefully, trying to touch as little of it as possible, and closed her eyes.

  “Looks like we were lucky again,” she heard Bran’s voice nearby.

  “Yes… the kami take good care of Nagomi — and us.”

  “Did you mean it?” he asked.

  “Mean what?”

  “When you said you trusted me.”

  There was a long pause as she mulled over the answer.

  “We have to trust each other. There’s nobody else left.”

  “Thank you.”

  He sighed. She heard the
fur rustle underneath him.

  “I killed a man today.”

  “It was the old Spirit, not you,” she said, not sure where he was going with it.

  “I think I slew some more yesterday.”

  She tried to recall the details of the battle, but it was all a blur; only the death of the man in the black yamabushi robes she remembered clearly, the sound of cracking skull, her blooded sword.

  “I thought you were a soldier.”

  He sighed again.

  “I was taught how to fight, yes, but not how to take a life. It’s… not at all how I imagined.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said, “I am a samurai. Killing is in my blood.”

  But when she closed her eyes she could still see the anguish on the slain man’s face; after all it was her first kill, too.

  Does death hurt that much?

  “An old doctor once told me,” said Bran, “not to dwell too long on killing. If I do, I might start… enjoying it.”

  “That’s what my Father taught me, too. Not to give in to bloodlust. The doom of the samurai, he called it. But I yearned to kill this demon so much!”

  Father…

  Shūhan’s gentle face appeared before her eyes. What would he have said about the way she conducted herself in the battle?

  “It was close. We could have all died there.”

  “Nagomi almost did.”

  “Eh… Our host is right. No point dwelling on the past. We’re alive, that’s all that matters. As soon as Nagomi is healed and rested, we will…”

  He hung his voice.

  “We will go down from these mountains,” she finished for him. “And the first thing I’ll do when we get to a town is take a bath and buy some new clothes. Good thing I still have my gold.”

  This was as far ahead as she could think right now.

  Bran turned on his side; from the soft rhythm of Satō’s breath he could tell she was already asleep. The priestess lay on the platform on her back with her hands clasped over her stomach, hair spread like red fire on the dark skins. The door to the hut squeaked open and in came Torishi, quietly, with three large fish tied to a pole. The bear-man sat down in the corner and began to work on his catch in utter silence.

  They had avoided the subject all day, but now that Bran was alone with his thoughts it had returned at last.

  What are we going to do now? What am I going to do?

  There was a void in his mind; the dragon was gone. Broken away, it was roaming somewhere over Yamato.

  I could still hunt it down, he thought, follow the news and rumours. A rampaging dragon is an easy thing to track after all.

  But he dreaded what he had to do to Emrys, as he also knew, after the Farlink was gone, it was too late for anything else.

  Father was right, he thought bitterly. He imagined Dylan, shaking his finger.

  “I told you. You can’t trust a dragon.”

  I still need to get back home after that. The Bataavian ship will be here in a month, if I manage to get back to Kiyō. He sighed. Suddenly everything seemed that much more complicated and depressing. Get to Emrys, and fly away; that was all he had ever thought about - until now.

  And what about the girls? It had been an insane idea to take Nagomi on this dangerous journey in the first place. Whatever had Lady Kazuko been thinking? And Satō? Without a dragon, was Bran still a target for the Crimson Robe?

  Unlikely. She would be better off chasing him on her own. Or better yet, find somebody more suitable for the job… like that Gensai man from Kirishima.

  He didn’t sleep much that night; by morning he had made up his mind.

  “I’m going after the dragon. Alone. We will get you two down to the Valleys and find a way to transport Nagomi back to Kiyō.”

  They looked at him puzzled.

  “It’s my dragon and it’s my quest,” he proceeded to explain. “You both are no longer a part of it. Satō, you had better look for your father without me. And I don’t care about the Prophecies or whatever the High Priestess told you, Nagomi — it’s got too dangerous.”

  “Do you think... I followed you because... Kazuko-hime told me to?” asked the priestess quietly. Talking still was an effort for her.

  “No, that’s not what I —”

  “It was not your decision to have us join you, and it will not be your decision to make us leave,” said Satō.

  “Look, you got it all wrong!” Bran struggled, “I only do this because I don’t want you to get hurt! Because I care about you.”

  “And you think that we don’t care... about you?” Nagomi said and turned her face to the wall. She would not say anything more.

  “Idiot,” said Satō, standing up. “Don’t make her angry, she’s still not well. Come, let’s talk outside.”

  Bran followed her and they sat on the bank of the cold stream.

  “I want to track the dragon down. But I can do it all by myself,” he said, scratching the scab on his cheek. “You don’t need to follow me anymore. You can go searching for your father, and Nagomi can rest in some shrine in Kagoshima. I would only be getting in your way.”

  Satō sighed and wrapped her arms around her knees.

  “I’ll tell you a secret, Bran. I don’t think my old man is still alive.”

  He looked at her, surprised.

  “I never said anything because I didn’t want to worry Nagomi, but… it’s been so long. The Crimson Robe must have decided it’s not worth keeping him around anymore.”

  “Then why…?”

  “I want revenge. And don’t you want one too? It’s partly because of that demon that your dragon has gone — how do you say it?”

  “Feral.”

  She pondered it for a while.

  “I understand what you’re trying to do, and I think it’s very honourable,” she said at last, “but it’s too late.”

  She put her hand on his arm in a gesture she must have picked up from him.

  “We’re friends now, Bran. We fought together; we’ve been through hardships together. We’ve saved each other’s lives. And if there’s anything you need help with, you can count on us.”

  He nodded slowly and smiled, somehow relieved.

  “And you can count on me.”

  “Great.” She stood up. “So what’s the real plan?”

  By the next morning, Nagomi stood up from the bed on her own. She swayed at first, but refused the support of Satō’s arm.

  “I’m fine, really. I need to stretch my legs, they’re too weak.”

  She paced slowly around the hut; there wasn’t a lot of space in the low, dark building, so she stepped outside, where Torishi was preparing a morning soup of bracken and roots. The bear-man saw her and smiled, welcoming her to sit beside him.

  “You’re well, little cub.”

  “Yes. All thanks to you, I hear, Torishi-sama.”

  She bowed.

  “Thanks to the Spirits. You know it as well as I do.”

  “You’re a priest, too?”

  A shadow marred his face for a moment.

  “I speak to the Spirits, but in a different way.”

  In the silence that followed, she sensed the presence of many kami all around her. They studied her in curious silence; the place felt almost like… like…

  “This entire glade is a shrine!” she said, astonished.

  Torishi nodded. “We do not build shrines. Our Spirits dwell with us.”

  “Did you stay here to keep the Spirits company after everyone died?”

  “You might say that,” he said and threw another split root into the pot. There was little emotion in his voice, but Nagomi suddenly felt an overwhelming sadness and loneliness.

  “I heard that you… your people lived here before the Yamato came.”

  He nodded.

  “Are you one of the Ancients, then?”

  “Oh, no,” he said, shaking his hairy head. “But I know of them. They lived alongside us, a long time ago. The Little Folk, we called them. We
learned the bear lore from them, and the secrets of the Forest.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “They were already a dying race when we came. That’s what the legends say. Sick and poor. They hid in the tunnels they dug deep into the mountains, in the earth barrows… praying to their dragon gods to come and save them. None ever did.”

  The dragon gods?

  “This is ready,” he added, picking up the pot. “Time to put it on the fire.”

  “There’s no point wasting your time because of me”, said Nagomi, “the sooner we leave, the sooner we will find Bran’s dragon and your honoured Father.”

  Satō cast Bran a meaningful look and said, “It shouldn’t take us more than two, three days to reach Kagoshima, and it’s a city as big as Kiyō.”

  “Did your father know anyone in Kagoshima?” asked Bran.

  “There are a few wizards who moved there from Kiyō. I’m sure I can ask around. We’ll be safe from the Taikun there, too.”

  She noticed the bear-man listening to their conversation with great interest and, as soon as they finished planning, he stood up and started packing his belongings into a large canvas bag: his shaman’s box, little drum, ointments and herbs.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “There is nothing to keep me here.”

  He reached for the weapons hanging on the wall — a long, curved hunting knife in antler sheath and a bow with two dozen flint head arrows.

  “But what about the Spirits?” asked Nagomi.

  “They agree. Your coming was a sign. Time to forget about the past.”

  “You don’t even know our purpose.”

  “I don’t need to.”

  Satō leaned over to Bran and whispered in his ear.

  “What do you think?”

  “We could use his protection,” replied Bran, eyeing Torishi’s muscular arms and chest, “if we can trust another stranger. He seems kind though...”

  “He is a werebear. What if it’s dangerous, like your Dragonform?”

  Satō felt Nagomi’s hand on hers.

  “I believe in this man’s good intentions,” the red-haired girl said. “Please, Sacchan, let him join us.”

  “All right, then,” said Satō with a sigh. “We’re moving out in an hour. I just hope the people in the valleys don’t shoot you on sight.”