Valley of Shields

by Duncan Lay

  Hanto managed to focus on the speaker — being away from everyone from so long made all faces seem strange and it was a few moments before he recognised who was talking to him.

  ‘Gaibun! So I am home then?’

  ‘You are home.’

  Hanto fell to his knees in gratitude, tears streaming down his face. ‘My torment is over,’ he sobbed, then looked up. ‘There are thousands of gaijin marching towards us!’

  ‘We know,’ Gaibun said irritably. ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘I shall walk,’ Hanto said, pushing himself to his feet. ‘I must see the Lord Jaken. I have vital news for him about his son and the gaijin.’ His tiredness and hunger was forgotten. The end of his duty was close.

  Gaibun watched him, thinking furiously. Once Hanto had delivered his message, Jaken would have no choice but to take action and the Forlish would not have to do a thing to take Dokuzen. By the time they arrived the elves and Velsh would have killed each other. There was only one thing to do. Gaibun reached into the magic and pushed it at Hanto. He did it carefully and didn’t meet any resistance, for Hanto was at the edge already. He had obviously been eating badly for some time and had probably had almost nothing in the last few days as he raced the Forlish to Dokuzen. When Gaibun had seen Hanto last, he had been a proud, muscular warrior. Now he was a shadow of his former self. It was obviously only willpower keeping him on his feet, so Gaibun used the magic to make Hanto feel as though he were still fresh.

  ‘Can you run back to Lord Jaken?’ Gaibun asked.

  ‘Of course!’ Hanto snorted.

  ‘Then we shall run,’ Gaibun ordered and they followed him as he set a pace that only a fit warrior could maintain. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Hanto keeping pace and smiled to himself. This was a trick Asami had showed him and Sendatsu just before their Tests, allowing them to perform better for a short period of time — but the penalty was far greater exhaustion afterwards.

  He did not let the pace slacken until they were hurrying over to Jaken, ignoring stares and pointing fingers as elves first wondered at the ragged figure running with his patrol, then recognised Hanto.

  Gaibun held up a hand as Jaken approached, at the same time removing the magic help from Hanto. The dishevelled warrior staggered to a stop and nearly fell — only the steadying arm of Gaibun saving him.

  ‘What is this?’ Jaken demanded.

  ‘We found him wandering in the forest, trying to reach you. Aroaril knows how long he has been out there,’ Gaibun said, removing his arm from Hanto’s grasp.

  Jaken stepped forwards, to where Hanto bowed — and then fell flat on his face.

  An elf bent down and turned him over, but Hanto’s eyes had rolled back in his head and not even a slap across the face could revive him.

  ‘What did he want?’ Jaken asked.

  ‘He wanted to warn us that there was an army of gaijin approaching,’ Gaibun said with a straight face.

  Jaken snorted with disgust. ‘Take him back to the city. I will talk to him after tomorrow.’

  Gaibun signalled and four of his band picked up Hanto and carried him away.

  ‘I thought he was dead,’ Jaken mused.

  ‘As did I, lord.’

  ‘See that he speaks to nobody before I get the chance to talk with him.’

  ‘I shall arrange it,’ Gaibun promised, breathing a sigh of relief.

  Cadel was the first to notice the little patrol’s return.

  ‘Who is that running with Gaibun? Have they captured a Forlishman?’

  Sendatsu peered at the group, seeing something familiar about the ragged figure but it did not register with him until the group had nearly reached Jaken. Then he surged to his feet.

  ‘That’s Hanto!’ he spat.

  ‘Hanto?’ Huw asked.

  ‘The elf who was sent out after me. The one who would have killed you and Rhiannon — and who knows that Rhiannon has magic after she stopped him and killed his companions,’ Sendatsu said.

  ‘Has he come back to ruin everything?’

  ‘It’s likely,’ Sendatsu said. ‘Where’s Rhiannon?’

  After resting by the tree, she had joined the Velsh, but was lying down near the remains of what had been the main building housing the tombs.

  Huw nudged Cadel. ‘Go and get her.’

  While he raced off, they watched nervously as Hanto arrived in front of Jaken — and then collapsed and was carried away.

  ‘He didn’t get the chance to say anything,’ Sendatsu said.

  ‘But he is going to,’ Huw replied. ‘He will recover and then he will tell your father that Rhiannon can do magic.’

  Cadel rushed back, without Rhiannon.

  ‘She says she is too tired to move,’ he reported.

  Huw and Sendatsu exchanged looks. ‘We have to talk to her,’ Sendatsu said.

  ‘I won’t allow her to be sacrificed,’ Huw warned. ‘There will be no repeat of the way the elves stamped out humans with magic three hundred years ago.’

  ‘It won’t come to that,’ Sendatsu insisted, not sure if it was true.

  They found her facing one of the tombs, her back to the rest of them.

  ‘Rhiannon, we need to talk. Hanto has returned,’ Huw began, but she did not respond and he kneeled and touched her shoulder — only to have her shy away from him.

  ‘What is it?’ He moved around to see the tears still running down her face.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it!’

  Huw sat down beside her. ‘It is upsetting you. Please, tell me. If you don’t say anything, then how can I help you?’

  She shook her head and he gently stroked her long hair back from her face. ‘Please, let me help. I cannot stand seeing you like this.’

  Rhiannon said nothing for a long time, then visibly gathered herself.

  ‘Asami. I did something terrible … just like you,’ she trailed off and wiped her eyes angrily. ‘Mai was right.’

  ‘What?’ Sendatsu and Huw exchanged baffled looks.

  Rhiannon waved her hand, unable to speak coherently to them. Finally she held out her arms to Huw.

  ‘Hold me. Just hold me,’ she managed to say.

  Huw stopped staring at Sendatsu in confusion and jumped in quickly, holding her close. ‘It’s all right. Whatever it is, we can deal with it,’ he said. He looked up at Sendatsu, who was gesturing furiously, and glared at the elf.

  ‘Don’t you realise this is important?’ he whispered.

  ‘More important than the death of us all?’

  ‘Much more!’

  Slowly Rhiannon got herself under control.

  ‘It seems foolish to be upset when we could all die tomorrow but Asami and I are not speaking.’

  ‘Why? We need her help now,’ Sendatsu blurted.

  ‘Why do we need her help?’ Rhiannon pulled away from Huw a little.

  ‘That’s not important now. We should talk about you,’ Huw said comfortingly.

  ‘Hanto has returned. He is obviously sick, and exhausted, but he will speak to my father soon, and tell him that you can do magic. My father might be grateful for your help in saving Dokuzen but I can assure you that gratitude will disappear like fog in the morning sun once he learns humans have magic — and when the warriors of Dokuzen return.’

  ‘He will come for me?’ Rhiannon asked, a trace of fire returning to her voice.

  ‘Over my dead body,’ Huw assured her. ‘We will never let him take you.’

  Sendatsu sighed. ‘We need Asami to help us stop him, or at least prepare to get the Velsh away to safety,’ he said.

  ‘What happened between you two?’ Huw asked. ‘You were so close.’

  Rhiannon bit her lip. ‘We were talking about Sendatsu, about how she is drawn to him but does not want to betray Gaibun either — and how you cannot accuse her of betrayal with Gaibun when you slept with your wife — and then me.’

  Huw and Sendatsu stared at her, stricken. ‘You told her I had slept with you?’ Sendatsu gasped.


  ‘That you had tricked and seduced me,’ Rhiannon said.

  Sendatsu wanted to curse, to throw something, to hit something. He spun away so she could not see his face.

  ‘It is better to know the truth,’ Huw said with some feeling. ‘She did not like to hear it but she will understand, and accept it with time.’

  ‘Except that time is the one thing none of us have,’ Sendatsu said in a strangled voice. His heart told him to find Asami and beg her forgiveness — but his head warned him that would be a huge mistake.

  ‘How could you tell her that?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t deliberate! I wouldn’t destroy my friendship with her just to spite you and I wouldn’t want to spoil what you have either! If you listened to her once in a while, rather than trying to tell her what she should do and how she should live her life, then this wouldn’t have happened!’

  Sendatsu snorted in disgust.

  ‘You need to talk to Gaibun,’ Huw said calmly. ‘He brought in Hanto. He knows where he has gone.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to Gaibun. He and I are fighting for Asami and, as he reminded me all too happily, he is the one married to her.’

  ‘Too much is at stake for some foolish feud!’

  ‘Foolish! It is everything to us!’

  ‘And Rhiannon means the same to me,’ Huw said quietly. ‘If you don’t stop Hanto, then the Velsh and elves will fight over her, for we shall not give her up to your father. And you are going to have to do it — because it seems Asami won’t be helping us.’

  Sendatsu cursed, loudly and fluently, then kicked a chunk of rock for good measure.

  ‘I’ll go and see him now,’ he said finally. ‘Are you coming?’

  Huw glanced at Rhiannon, seeing the need she would never admit to. ‘No. I have to spend this time helping Rhiannon. And she has done enough already.’

  Sendatsu stamped off angrily. As if there was not enough going on, he had to lose Asami and beg for help from bloody Gaibun in the same night! He found his former friend getting a big bowl of food. Being so close to the city, huge bowls of rice mixed with fish, octopus and vegetables had been brought out and Gaibun was wolfing some down now.

  ‘What do you want? Come to fight with real warriors?’ Gaibun said through a full mouth.

  ‘We need to speak about Hanto. And we need to do it quietly,’ Sendatsu said.

  Gaibun’s eyes flashed and his chopsticks did not pause as they shovelled food into his mouth but he nodded once, abruptly. He chewed for a few moments, then swallowed.

  ‘Let us walk,’ he said, putting down his bowl.

  ‘We need to silence Hanto,’ Sendatsu said as soon as they had cleared the firelight.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He knows about Rhiannon. We cannot let him speak to my father.’

  ‘I already saw to that. Why else do you think he collapsed before he could say a word? Nothing will be said before Dokuzen is safe.’

  ‘That is not good enough. The Velsh have sacrificed too much to see that wasted because of one warrior’s hate. Do you want to fight off the Forlish and then have to fight the Velsh as well?’

  Gaibun shook his head. ‘Well, of course not. But how do we buy his silence?’

  Sendatsu rubbed his face. ‘We can’t. He hates me as well. There is only one way to keep him quiet.’

  ‘Kill him?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t mean inviting him back to Patcham to sing a few songs.’

  Gaibun’s face tightened. ‘But he is a brother Tadayoshi. He was following his orders, nothing more, and merely intends to report back to his clan leader. Any one of us would do the same. Yet you want not to just kill him but murder him in his sleep. It is no death for a warrior.’

  Sendatsu shook his head. Everything Gaibun said made sense. Worse, his plan was something his father might do. But he could not see any other way around it. ‘We don’t have time to argue this. We owe the Velsh for what they are doing to save Dokuzen. One elf’s life is worth Dokuzen, is it not? Hanto would happily give his life for Dokuzen.’

  ‘But you are talking about murder, against everything we have been taught and an offence to Aroaril.’

  ‘And is there such a huge difference between killing a man in battle and in bed?’

  ‘Yes! Hanto cannot fight back. And he is in such a state, even if you put a sword in his hand, he would not be able to fight.’

  Sendatsu grabbed Gaibun’s arm. ‘It has to be done. Or Velsh and elves will fight. And I will not see that happen. I will do anything to stop that. Will you help me?’

  Gaibun hesitated, then half smiled. ‘I have never refused to help you before. I am not about to start now.’

  Sendatsu began walking. ‘Quickly then, before one of us changes our mind.’

  Asami felt lost and alone. Gaibun and Sendatsu were brawling over her, both professing love and yet more concerned about beating the other than winning her. Sendatsu’s behaviour was impossible to explain. How could he have rutted with Rhiannon and then hidden it from her? Rhiannon’s betrayal was just as hard to stomach. Asami had never had a friend like that. How could she have sat there and listened with a straight face while Asami babbled on about Sendatsu? She could not bear to see the human girl again.

  Then there was Gaibun. Had he really changed or was all this an elaborate game, yet another competition of his against Sendatsu? For the long years of their loveless marriage she had felt staying pure had kept her love for Sendatsu alive. Deep down, she had harboured dreams of the two of them finally being together, of being able to say to him she had kept faith, kept their promise to be only with the other. Of course it was foolish; a teenage pledge of love could not hope to survive in the face of political marriages and adult realities. But it had been nice to dream.

  While her choice to sleep with Gaibun had felt right at that moment, thinking Gaibun was going to his death, now it felt sour, left a bitter memory. She had lost the dream; it felt like she had lost everything.

  And she had nobody to talk to.

  ‘Asami! What is the matter?’

  She turned, lost in misery, to see Sumiko striding towards her.

  ‘There is nothing wrong. I am merely tired,’ she lied brightly, thankful it was dark here, under the trees. She would never have got away with it in the daylight.

  ‘Why aren’t you with the humans?’

  ‘I just needed some time alone.’

  Sumiko stopped a few paces away. ‘Please, do not lie to me. If everything was as you wished, then you would be with your friends, not sitting over here by yourself in the dark. You don’t have to tell me what is wrong — I don’t really care anyway. But I need you tomorrow. Dokuzen needs you tomorrow — and your human friends will need you tomorrow.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You are the best Magic-weaver, after myself, in Dokuzen. And your human friend is close behind. The pair of you are certainly better than anyone else we have. But Jaken must not know that humans can do magic. We shall need Rhiannon to help, but you have to be near her, so we can plausibly explain it was all you. Jaken is too clever — he knows your abilities, as well as those of the likes of even Oroku. He will not believe Oroku capable of such great feats. And, believe me, we shall need great feats from everyone to live through tomorrow.’

  Asami just wanted to be alone. ‘Fine. I shall do so.’

  Sumiko sighed. ‘You should have trusted me, you know. I could have stopped all this long ago, given you everything you ever wanted. If you desire Sendatsu, or Gaibun, or even both of them, then they can be yours. If everything seems very complicated now, remember I can make it all become very simple. Power and reward for those with magic. Come and see me when you are ready for those of us with magic to take our rightful place in the world. Bring your human friend. There is a place for you both. All you have to do is pledge yourselves to me, now and forever. I’ll leave you to think about that this night. Talk it over with Rhiannon. Come and talk to me tomorrow, after our victory.’

  And with tha
t she was gone, leaving Asami alone with her thoughts, in the darkness.

  ‘I had Hanto taken back to my house. It is the last place people will look, and means he is under my control,’ Gaibun said as they rode back through Dokuzen’s quiet streets. Many people had taken Jaken’s advice and packed everything they could and rode away, heading north for the dubious safety of the farming and mining villages that supported Dokuzen. Others had stayed — those who refused to run from gaijin and those who could not run — although almost all of those were at the many churches, praying fervently. It was by far the best attendance the churches had seen for two hundred years, although no priest would say that. The streets were deserted, more so than when Daichi had put out a curfew.

  ‘We will make it seem as though he has died in his sleep, his heart unable to take the strain of the past few moons,’ Sendatsu said.

  ‘This is wrong,’ Gaibun muttered. ‘What about Sumiko? She knows about Rhiannon’s magic and doesn’t have any love for us, or the humans. We could do this thing and have her betray us tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, but Asami spoke to her and says she won’t be a problem. Everyone knows Sumiko and Jaken hate each other — always have. She wouldn’t offer him a glass of water if he was on fire. But, to make sure, I’ll speak to Asami.’

  ‘You’ll speak to Asami? I should be the one speaking to Asami. After all, she is my wife.’

  ‘Because I wasn’t available.’

  Gaibun stopped. ‘So you think,’ he said. ‘You have always imagined I was second best and, worse, that I was happy being second best. Well, you are wrong — and Asami has made her choice to prove it.’

  Angry words crowded into Sendatsu’s mouth and it was only with a huge effort that he stopped them from tumbling out. ‘We have a task to complete. We have to hurry.’

  Gaibun stared at him before grudgingly nodding. ‘I do wish only one of us had fallen in love with her,’ he muttered. ‘It would make life so much easier.’

  ‘In the last few moons, that has been the least of my problems.’ Sendatsu offered a ghost of a smile as they pushed open the front door and walked in.

  ‘He’ll probably be in a guest bedroom,’ Gaibun said.