The Year of the Dragon Omnibus

by James Calbraith

  “The calm ones,” said Izumi with a grin. “The big white ones. They should be already bridled. Each of you take one and lead it out. Hurry!”

  “We need time to saddle,” said Bran.

  “Nobody saddles an Ikezuki!” Izumi said with a chuckle. “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right; you won't feel a thing. You too, boy —” To Satō’s terror, he seemed to be talking to her. “Go help!”

  She closed her eyes and stepped inside; her entire body wanting to run away. The smell and the noise overwhelmed her. She bumped into something big, soft and warm. She opened her eyes and found herself staring straight into another pair, dark brown and calm, belonging to a giant white horse. Fear took her over.

  “Ah, good, take this one, I’ll get another,” one of Izumi’s students said and pushed the bridle strap into her clammy hands.

  The animal nudged her with its nose. Satō almost fell down.

  What do I do now? Do I just… pull it?

  She tugged on the leather strap gently and the animal took a step forward.

  “Move, you’re blocking the way!” Somebody shouted from behind. The girl shook her head.

  Pull yourself together, Takashima Satō.

  Every step towards the stable door felt like a mile, but at last she was outside. She saw a full-scale battle in the castle courtyard, with soldiers now running towards them from every direction. Torishi and Master Dōraku were already there, alongside Master Heishichi and the High Priest — the bear-man behind, shooting his bow, the Swordsman in front, whirling the twin blades; she cast a quick glance towards the Eastern Gate and saw it open wide, with several guards lying dead from arrow-shots. She felt sick.

  “Right, that’s the last one,” said Bran, leading another of the white horses out of the stables. He gasped.

  “By the Red Dragon’s Beard, what’s going on here?”

  “Release the others,” the High Priest commanded, “it will add to the confusion.”

  Ishi and Bashi ran inside. Moments later, a dozen terrified horses galloped past her, straight towards the soldiers.

  “Now! Mount up! Daisen-sama, do as we planned.”

  Master Heishichi spread his hands apart and weaved a complex pattern, shouting a couple of Bataavian spell words in quick succession. A wall of flame rose between him and the castle guards.

  Satō felt herself picked up and put onto the back of the horse nearest to her. Master Dōraku leapt in front of her.

  “Hold tight!”

  “To what?”

  “To me!” the Swordsman replied, laughing. She clung to his back and shut her eyes tight as the horse underneath her bolted forward.

  She had no idea how much time had passed. Everything was hazy and blurry; her backside and thighs ached with a thousand burns and tears. At last, the horse stopped and she slid to the ground.

  They were on the outskirts of the city, just beyond the last line of houses, near the river. Satō saw Bran help Nagomi dismount carefully from the horse she shared with the boy; the wizardess felt a pang of irritation and looked away. She noted that Master Heishichi sat on his mount almost as precariously as she had. She guessed the merchant’s son didn’t have much practice in bareback riding, either.

  Master Izumi and one of his students remained mounted, watching the road behind anxiously. The other boy was missing. There was one more member of the party she couldn’t account for… Only then did she notice that Master Dōraku was carrying a bow and a quiver on his back.

  “Where is Torishi?”

  “He will meet us in two days near Kokura.”

  “I didn’t see him take a horse.”

  Master Dōraku chuckled. “The Chief of the Kumaso doesn’t need a horse.”

  “Will he know the way? He’s never been in these parts.”

  “He will manage,” the Swordsman replied. “And now we’d better go too,” he added. “The chase will be upon us any minute. Izumi-sama?”

  “We part here. I’m grateful for your help,” said Master Izumi. “I hope we’ll meet again, in Satsuma.”

  “Is that where you’re going?”

  “Where else! Oh, and have this; who knows, it may come in useful.” He cast the Swordsman a small pouch of red embroidered cloth. “A Dan-no-Ura talisman. This one works,” he added with a wink, then spurred his horse and galloped south, followed by the one remaining student; Satō couldn’t tell whether it was Ishi or Bashi.

  “Right. Allow me, please. ” Master Dōraku grabbed Satō by the waist and lifted her back onto the horse.

  “I hope you don’t mind getting a bit wet.”

  “Why? Where are we going?”

  “To the other side,” he replied, pointing to the Chikugo River, flowing wide and wild this far from the sea. “Let’s see if these horses are really as good swimmers as the legends say.”

  Bran stroked the horse’s snow white neck. Its mane shimmered silver in the moonlight, and its eyes glinted like amber. The horse was silent and serious, just as it had been all night. It never so much as snorted.

  He soon learned to appreciate the mount’s value. After crossing the river as easily as if it was a garden pond, the horse had now been galloping for hours, without showing the least signs of tiredness. Moreover, the ride was smooth and mercifully gentle on his body, something Bran had been most worried about. He never liked horse-riding much, always preferring the dragon; but this ride, with the road beneath them zooming at incredible speed and the cold wind battering against his head, was as close to flying as he could have hoped. There was even, in the way the horse responded instantly and intuitively to his commands, something resembling a primitive Farlink, a faint buzz of connection. Bran could easily imagine riding a horse like this into battle against a dragon.

  He still wasn’t sure if getting the horses was worth risking their lives for, rousing the defences of an entire castle and sacrificing one of Izumi’s students. As he rode away from the Eastern Gate, Bran had seen the boy fall off his mount with an arrow in the back. Something didn’t feel right about it all…

  “We’ve been had,” he said to himself.

  “I’m sorry?” asked Nagomi; the girl had been clinging desperately to his back at the beginning of their escape, but by now had managed to relax her grip a little, growing steadily used to the new mode of transport.

  “We’ve been used,” he said aloud. “This was never about the horses or us catching up with the Crimson Robe.”

  “Then why…?”

  “Politics, I guess. We helped that High Priest escape — obviously he’s important to somebody at Satsuma — and disrupted the war preparations by burning the stables and stealing the horses. Maybe even provoked some clash between the lords.”

  This sounds exactly like something my father would have done, he thought.

  “War? There is a war coming?”

  “Haven’t you heard what Izumi-sama was saying? The Taikun mobilizes the troops throughout the country. Even I can tell this is bad.”

  “You’re a soldier. You know how these things work.”

  I’m not a soldier. I was just raised by one.

  “You’re the one who foresaw all this,” he replied. “You’ve seen the Darkness.”

  Nagomi fell silent. Without turning around, Bran imagined her frowning and mulling over what he just said.

  “I didn’t tell anyone…”

  So Shigemasa was right.

  “What is it? What did you see?”

  “Dark clouds over Yamato. A storm of carrion crows. A bloody dawn.”

  “I don’t know much about prophecies, but that can’t be good.”

  “No, I don’t think it is,” said Nagomi. She sighed and leaned her head against his shoulders. “There is something else I keep seeing…”

  She told him about the three men invading an old man’s castle in her dream. Now he frowned.

  Grey Hoods! The Rome or…the Gorllewin? They are in Qin... And the green-eyed man — is that…my father? Who’s the bearded fellow, the
n?

  “Have you told anyone about this dream?”

  “No,” she answered. “Not even Sacchan. I dream many dreams.”

  “And yet you remembered this one.”

  “This one was different… this one scared me.”

  Some half an hour later Dōraku’s horse slowed down to a trot, allowing Bran to match its speed.

  “That’s enough for today,” the Swordsman said. “These may be half-mythical horses, but they are not immortal — and I bet you are tired too.”

  Bran nodded, although he felt he could still ride for a few hours more. It was only after he dismounted to help with breaking camp that he felt the pain and numbness in his legs. The girls collected firewood, while he and Dōraku rubbed the horses dry with straw and led them to a small stream and a glade of fresh, moist grass.

  “We’ve covered more ground than I hoped for,” said Dōraku patting one horse on the neck. The animals neighed uneasily. “Can you tell where your dorako is now?”

  Bran leaned against the pine tree and closed his eyes.

  “It’s closer, but still ahead of us,” he said.

  And so is the other dragon, he thought. Far to the north… towards Edo! Did the Taikun get a beast of his own?

  The Swordsman frowned. “Ganryū might reach Kokura before us at this rate.”

  “Then shouldn’t we be riding further?”

  “No, no,” Dōraku shook his head. “I can’t risk you all being exhausted by the time we confront him.”

  Confront him?

  “We don’t even know how — or if — we can kill him,” he said, but Dōraku said nothing.

  Bran sat under the pine tree, focusing on the black spot inside the campfire flames.

  “Taishō-sama.”

  He waited a while for the General to bubble up.

  “I’m listening, boy.”

  “Have you learnt anything?”

  “I saw your beast again, boy. It’s looking rather forlorn.”

  “Forlorn?”

  Bran closed his eyes and instantly transported his mind to the plain of red dust. Following Shigemasa’s lead, he found the phantom jade dragon shuffling about, dragging its tail across the red sand with its head held low. His heart sank.

  It looks sick.

  He approached the beast slowly. The dragon raised its head and looked up at Bran, but there was no recognition in its eyes. Lowering its neck again, it trundled on.

  We’ve been through this! What’s wrong now? And I even have my ring now —

  He looked at his hand: the ring was missing. He frowned.

  Why is it gone?

  Since his conversation with Torishi, Bran had been growing certain that the blue shard was the whole reason behind what, he had thought, was his natural affinity to the dragons.

  There was nothing special about me, after all, he had reasoned. My Farlink quotient, Emrys’s obedience… it was all down to this little shard of crystal.

  Dylan had never shown an affinity for having a good contact with his mounts; he had scars to prove it, after all. So where would Bran’s sudden talent had come from?

  Did Ifor know about the stone’s power? Did he learn it from that Yamato woman, Ōmon?

  He opened his eyes, returning to the real world, and reached into his satchel. He took the medallion out; the sad, almond-eyed face appeared under his touch. Who was she anyway? She didn’t seem exotic to him now; he could appreciate her mysterious beauty. She was older than and not as regal as Atsuko, but she was a beauty nonetheless. No wonder Ifor fell for her…

  She faced the Crimson Robe too, he remembered.

  He chased her all the way to Dejima — all for that little piece of blue stone?

  Would Dōraku know…?

  He put it back into the bag and noticed Satō approach him.

  “Hullo.”

  “May I —?” she asked. He nodded. She sat down beside him, wrapping her arms around her knees.

  “You didn’t fight in Kurume,” she said.

  “I’m not going to kill anyone over some horses,” he replied.

  She looked at him with a curious expression. “You’re always so reluctant to take life. Is this because of what the Western wizards teach about the mogelijkheit?”

  “You know the theory of potentials?”

  “Of course. What Rangaku scholar doesn’t? But it’s just a theory, and few believe it in Yamato.”

  “I thought that was it at first,” Bran admitted, “but now I think it’s something within me. Certainly, the wizards in the Dracalish army have no such qualms.” He remembered the bloody history of the Empire, the destruction he had seen in Qin, and his father’s personal accounts of war. Dylan must have lost the count of lives he had taken long ago. It did not seem to diminish his powers in the least, but what did he really know about his father?

  Maybe that’s it, he thought, looking at his hands and imagining the full power of dragon flame surging through his fingers. Maybe I just don’t want to become like him: a man who can kill with a thought.

  “You’ll become a Butsu monk at this rate,” the wizardess said and chuckled softly.

  He looked back at her and noticed she was playing absent-mindedly with a small piece of polished bronze.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  She showed it to him. There was a strange rune scratched on the surface; the edges of the bronze were stained dark red.

  “My Father had it on him when he… died. I don’t know why.”

  Another man dead because of me, thought Bran.

  “Tanaka-sama said the rune must have been copied from the Crimson Robe; the whole place where they found him was covered in runes of this design.”

  “Why did you keep it?”

  “Wouldn’t you? I thought he maybe… wanted me to have it.”

  The light of the campfire glinted red off the bronze; the colour of Nagomi’s hair.

  “So I hear you’re not going back to Kiyō,” Bran said.

  “There’s nothing for me to go back to,” she replied.

  “What about all the things you left behind? What about the Dragon Book?”

  She smiled.

  “I have seen a dorako, Bran. What more do I need? Besides, you’ve already taught me more than any scholar in Yamato will ever learn.”

  “I wish I paid more attention in school,” he said. “I always thought being able to fly well was all that mattered.”

  “It would be all that matters to me.”

  “My grades were terrible, but they still offered me a baccalaureate,” he said with a chuckle.

  “What does it mean?”

  “More years in school. Had I agreed to that, I would never have come here.”

  “You wouldn’t have lost Emris.”

  “I wouldn’t have met you,” he said and looked at her; with her chin on her knees, the back of her neck showed pale in the campfire light. His previous fascination with her nude body now seemed vulgar and barbaric. In Kagoshima, he had learned to appreciate the true beauty of a woman. How much more sensuous was this pale triangle of skin, cut off neatly by the collar of the kosode and the black pony-tail. Bran felt the warmth spread from his loins to his stomach and the desire to hold her close. He reached out to touch her. She brushed her cheek against his fingers.

  “Tomorrow, can I ride with you?” she asked. There was innocence in the question, belying anything that had ever happened — or could happen — between them.

  “I would like that very much.”

  Bran took the bronze spyglass from his satchel. It screwed open with a screech.

  I haven’t used it in a while. I almost forgot I had it.

  The lens fogged up and, as he waited for it to clear, he studied the view below.

  “It’s bigger than I remembered,” said Dōraku.

  The fir-covered hill on which Bran, Dōraku and Heishichi were standing overlooked a narrow, stormy strait, in the middle of which, lay a flat island stretching from north to south. It was shap
ed like a great ship, narrow at the ends, wide in the centre, a quarter of a mile long and about a hundred yards in breadth. On the southern side it was sheltered from the tides by a reef of jagged black rocks.

  Looking further west, Bran spotted tall, white castles rising on hilltops on either side of the narrows, like twin watchtowers guarding the sea passage — Nagato domain’s Chōfu in the North and Ogasawara’s Kokura to the south, as Dōraku had explained earlier.

  At last the spyglass was good for use and he could investigate the ship-shaped island more closely. The entire perimeter was surrounded by a tall earthen wall; most of the land was given to a green meadow, or pasture, with several clumps of wind-bent trees. A rectangular, two-storey mansion stood on a raised mound on the northern tip, with several long, low buildings of white stone scattered around it. The only obvious way onto the island was by a single pier jutting out in the direction of Kokura, surrounded by watchtowers and battlements.

  Bran counted at least ten guards in grey uniforms he remembered from Kirishima, wandering around the precinct; he reported this to Dōraku.

  “There are more in the watchtowers,” the Swordsman said. “These are Ganryū’s private troops. His students.”

  “Students?”

  “Officially, this island is the headquarters of a fencing school, Ganryū Dōjō. Most of his followers recruit from its students.”

  “There is a flag up on the mansion,” said Bran. “It looks like… an octopus?”

  Dōraku chuckled. “An Eight-headed Serpent,” he corrected Bran, before turning serious. “That means Ganryū’s inside.”

  I guessed as much. I can sense Emrys down there.

  “He flaunts the banner of the Serpent so openly?” asked Heishichi.

  “You know what it is?”

  “A secret order of assassins and troublemakers. Some say they were behind every failed rebellion against the Taikun.”

  “Not every,” said Dōraku. “But they were more than just assassins. Each head of the Serpent is an ancient Fanged.”

  “That banner has not been seen in a century,” murmured Heishichi. “Shimazu-dono must be informed.”

  “You’ve never mentioned it before.” Bran turned to Dōraku with an accusing stare.

  “Their power is all but spent,” the Swordsman said with a shrug. “Ganryū is an arrogant fool to use this symbol for himself.”