“Mercenary killers,” said Jobo now, still scowling as he looked over the highland. Gisan banners, tents of dirty gray; a blight, he’d said, upon Kitano gate.
“They’re my father’s bannermen,” said Sen.
Jobo looked at him, blankly. “So?” And walked off.
Sen had learned to stand in stillness while the crow monks sang with their swords around him, blades glinting and whistling under the trees. Tokuon’s men trained differently. It was not the dance of the crows. These men were bigger, heavier, scarred. They would trample through the autumn paddies. They knew the resistance that a body gave a sword, the extra power you had to give to facilitate a cut. He watched as Daijin Kanesuke, milk-brother to his cousin Tokuon and sibling to his wife Ohori, barked orders and stomped about with the cold gaze of a mountain ram. His face, larger and sterner than flint Tokuon’s, revealed a wild soul: scars criss-crossed his beard, his hair was flat and thick, and his eyes shone black like tar.
They wouldn’t hesitate to kill, Sen thought.So why do I?They would do it calmly, with no emotion, just pull the knife and watch the reddening flow. They were kijin; they knew why warriors were called ghosts of the gods.
“The sacred spear,” he heard Tokuon say, approaching his teacher at the end of the path. “They say you have it. It would be a great power to the one who would wield it.”
“We should not strive for such things, lord,” Jobo said.
Just then a shout drew their attention. On the sparring fields outside the gate, Rui had gotten into another argument with the riders. She called out, arms in the air, demanding to know who’d tied the horses up.
“You treat them like tools, they’ll throw you!” she was shouting. “Who’s takingcareof these horses!”
“What’s this?” Sen’s cousin Tsuna, the stark sister, had come over now. She turned with curiosity. “You know her?”
Rui shouted again. The Gensei bannermen from Gisan ignored her.She was no one; a no’in, a blade of grass. They were by the camphors at the northwest end of the estate, near the road to town, setting up targets for archery. Some of the lower ranks had started using the road shrine for practice, for who would give a care? The shrine meant nothing; it barely stood, decrepit, and no one took care of it except for Rui, by the camphor at the edge of the woods. The paint had chipped, the prayer ropes hung green and mildewed, and the offering bowl had only rainwater.
“Stop what you’re doing!” Rui hollered with force enough that the horsemen from the western mountains now stood, staring open-mouthed: who was this no’in, in crow monks’ clothes, who came striding through their field?
Rui, Sen saw, had caught them firing carelessly into the fringes of the woods. He knew the anger blooming in her face. Arrows lay scattered on the hillside, the camphors themselves struck here and there by a stray. The grounds near her statues lay littered.
Rui pulled down the straw targets, ignoring the men with bows in their arms; ignoring the thought of an arrow coming her way.
“This is a sacred wood,” she said, turning. The bannermen just stared.
“You. No’in,” Myorin called. “What is your name?”
She stopped, sullen, stiff. “Rui.”
“Why do you speak against us, Rui?”
“You disrespect the gods.”
Daijin laughed. “Maybe we will take an offering for peace. Your hand would strike me. We’ll offerthat.”
“She’s an acolyte,” Sen said.
He waved it off. “What matter?”
“She’s my friend.”
He laughed again. “Oh. Gallant, aren’t you, pretty Gensei? Reach out for nothing, even for a shit. She’sno’in.”
Daijin laughed once more. “Do what you want,” he muttered, coming close – close enough that Sen could smell the camp-meat on his breath. “But when it comes to these men, Hoshiakari, my soldiers? You better keep track of your birds.”
He shoved off. Sen fought the urge to follow him, to speak against his words. But Rui was standing at the edge of the meadow now, her brown eyes meeting his, and suddenly he wanted to say something, to call for her, but found himself stopped by a twisting in his throat.What are you doing over there, she seemed to say,among the kijin-tai?
When will you come back?
He made to step toward her, but too late. Rui scowled, running off witha hand to her face and a hollow look behind her eyes. Before he could go two paces, she was gone.
“Your friend’s quite the fighter,” Myorin said.
From the palisade at Kitaiji, the afternoon sky lay endless, and the clouds seemed closer than they should have, as if the world had twisted on its axis and the rolling hills had reached up to meet them. A shrike dove through mackerel clouds. The temple chimes rang in a wind.
