Dendera (27 page)

“If you’re straight with me, I’ll let you go. Where are you—you three—going? Try to deny it and I’ll kill you right here.”

“Go ahead.”

“Damn you.”

Kayu Saitoh clicked her tongue and removed herself from the woman.

Maru Kusachi stood up, projecting an aloof air, then brushed the snow off her face and white robes and looked at Kayu Saitoh with an entirely unperturbed expression. That was when Kayu Saitoh realized that this woman wouldn’t bow to any manner of threat. There had been people like her—though not many—back in the Village. Nothing unsettled them, and nothing got to them. And Kayu Saitoh didn’t know how to deal with people like that.

And so she decided to be blunt. “I hate your kind most of all.”

“You can say that to me, coming out of nowhere?” Maru Kusachi was blunt as well. “I don’t believe I’ve ever done anything to bother you.”

“No?”

“If I—just for example—were to destroy Dendera, would that bother you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you’re talking about. But it would bother me if any more people died. Isn’t that what you three are planning? Aren’t you three planning on going somewhere?”

“But where would we go?”

“How the hell should I know? It’s just a thought I had. I got the feeling that you, Hogi Takamiya, and Shijira Iikubo might be going somewhere.”

Immediately Maru Kusachi replied, “And here I thought
you
were the one going away. Aren’t you about to go resettle somewhere? Aren’t you going to move to where there’s no bear and no plague? Tell me now, where is such a place?”

“I think you three know that better than any of the rest of us.”

“Aren’t you something,” Maru Kusachi said with an approving nod. “You have quite the knack for grasping the situation, even if you don’t have much practice at it.”

“What are you going on about?”

“And such superb intuition,” Maru Kusachi continued. “You just might have been able to hold Dendera together—if only you were more experienced. It’s a shame, really.”

“Enough of that. Just answer me.” Kayu Saitoh raised her voice in impatience. “You, Hogi Takamiya, and Shijira Iikubo. What are you plotting? You’re not Hawks, and you’re not Doves.”

“Neither are you.”

“Don’t lump me in with you three.”

“That’s right. What do you suppose we should call your faction, the Swallows?”

“No, that label better applies to you three—you’ve already decided where you’re flying off to.” Kayu Saitoh held her eyes on Maru Kusachi and continued with words founded purely on intuition. “And you’ll go there as soon as your plague has destroyed Dendera.”

“You’re talking as if I’m behind the plague.”

“Am I wrong?”

“It’s not me.”

“It’s not
you
?” The woman’s reply struck her as odd. “What do you mean by that? Why did you say it that way?”

“I meant what I said.” Maru Kusachi didn’t break Kayu Saitoh’s gaze. “Spreading the plague isn’t in my intentions. I … no,
we—
that is Hogi Takamiya, Shijira Iikubo, and I—don’t really care. We couldn’t care less about the rest of you. But that woman is different.”

“Who is different?”

“I wonder if you’ll figure it out when you put together Hotori Oze’s and Nokobi Hidaka’s stories.”

“Enough with the secrets. Tell me straight out.”

“Maybe later.”

“Tell me now.”

“The place we’re going might actually be somewhere nice. Maybe without a bear. Maybe without a plague. And maybe without starvation.”

“Where? Where is it?”

“It’s a place you know better than anyone.”

At that, Maru Kusachi turned to walk away.

Kayu Saitoh stepped forward, either to catch up to the woman or to pummel her, but then she saw someone running in from a distance. The swiftly running woman, spear in hand, was Hikari Asami. Seeing the elderly woman sprinting, puffing out white plumes of breath, Kayu Saitoh’s intuition announced the worst.

But still, she had to ask. “What is it?”

Hikari Asami clenched her fist around her wooden spear.

“The bear is here.”

Starvation once again tormented Redback.

As she had predicted, the Two-Legs hadn’t again set foot in the mountain. Not wanting to enter the land where they dwelled, she had resisted making an attack, but her resistance had its limit. Redback descended the mountain, moving toward the land where the Two-Legs dwelled. Normally, she moved during the night or the early morning, but hunger overrode her reason, and she set out after dawn. This was against her animal nature, but such rules meant nothing to a creature captive to her craving for meat. Moving quickly, Redback soon reached the ridge overlooking the land of the Two-Legs. Only one thought moved her:
Kill and devour.
Her mind was empty of anything else—save for one other thought. One crucial thought.

Redback was counting on spring.

She had the feeling, a baseless conviction, that if she survived until spring, she would be all right. This thought underpinned her decision to attack and dispelled even her slightest hesitation. Her life depended on this, and her life she would stake upon it. She accepted that death could be the outcome. She had lost any notion of caution or guard. She understood that only by ridding herself of such things would victory be possible. She tensed her powerful front legs, bared her sharp fangs, and charged into the land where the Two-Legs dwelled.

Masari Shiina immediately called the women to assemble, but the bear had already begun its charge. By the time the women had sprinted to the manor, the watchtower had been destroyed. They gathered at the manor to the sound of the tower crumbling like paper before the bear’s single strike. But not all the women were there; only nine had arrived: Kayu Saitoh, Hono Ishizuka, Ate Amami, Hikari Asami, Kyu Hoshina, Ume Itano, Usuma Tsutsumi, Hotori Oze, and Masari Shiina. Shigi Yamamoto’s absence was to be expected, but the other six failed to materialize. Kyu Hoshina clicked her tongue and called them cowards under her breath, but Kayu Saitoh had expected at least four of the six wouldn’t show: Maru Kusachi, Hogi Takamiya, and Shijira Iikubo, who had disappeared off somewhere; and Nokobi Hidaka, who had lost all hope to the plague’s sudden onset.

Masari Shiina stepped forward.

“We’ll burn that bear to ashes,” she said. “But first, we need to lure it to the trap. Each of us will be bait to draw the bear. That’s how we will win. That’s our only path to victory. I am not at all saying any of you will die, but don’t think of your lives as precious. Think of those who have lived in Dendera and have died in Dendera, and fight. Think of Dendera itself, and fight. It is with that resolve that I too will face the bear. Aware that I am only bait to draw it into the trap, I will face the bear. That is all.”

The women took their positions in the clearing.

As Kayu Saitoh moved into place, she caught sight of the trap at the edge of the clearing. Beside the impressive, reinforced structure, a fire basket blazed. The sight of the building inspired the old women to courage, confidence, and absolute determination.

Even from the distance at which Kayu Saitoh stood, she could see the bear occupied in the further destruction of the tower. She questioned whether the women, no matter how determined, could really lure such a beast into the trap—especially when the bear had already been injured beside it.

The bear seemed to be making a display of its strength, but then the creature suddenly stopped its attack and hunched its shoulders. Kayu Saitoh understood what the bear was about to do.

She shouted, “It’s going to charge us!”

Her guess proved true as the bear bore swiftly down on them.

The tremendous charge came with a sound like the earth itself was rumbling. The bear kicked up snow as it ran, quickly closing the distance. As it neared, the savage beast seemed to grow even more giantlike, and the women reacted in fear; with their feet frozen in terror, they weren’t capable of leading the creature anywhere. The bear ran faster than seemed possible. It was close enough now that Kayu Saitoh could see every part of it—its thick front legs, wild tangles of fur, fangs thirsting for raw flesh, stout shoulders, the single eye, and the red fur that covered its back. The women didn’t move. Kayu Saitoh couldn’t even stick her spear out in front of her. Then, just as the women had resolved themselves to die, all the while cursing their rigid legs, the bear changed course. The creature kicked through the debris of the storehouse and vanished off somewhere.

“What was that?” Kyu Hoshina said. Freed from her paralysis, the woman watched the bear go.

“This isn’t good,” Masari Shiina whispered harshly. “After it. Hurry.”

The women swiftly gave chase and soon learned the bear’s target. Two of the five eastern huts had been partially destroyed, with pieces of their walls and even roofs torn away. From within came heart-rending shrieks and the sounds of flesh and bone being shredded, in a slow, drawn-out process that went on unbearably long.

“Ah,” Usuma Tsutsumi said dispiritedly, “they’re being eaten.”

Kyu Hoshina gritted her teeth. “They’re being eaten because they hid in their hut.”

Her low voice almost lost in the horrific sounds of the creature feeding, Hikari Asami said, “The bear must have decided … to start with the ones who wouldn’t resist.”

Tiny shreds of flesh flew out from one of the openings in the wall. Soon after came the rest of what was left of Tamishi Minamide, which was most of her. Kotei Hoshii, who must have seen the terrible sight, came crawling out from the adjacent hut. The bear saw her, smashed through the wall of her hut, and sank its teeth into the flailing woman’s skull. Kotei Hoshii wasn’t even able to let out a death cry. The bear held down her twitching body with its front paws and triumphantly began to devour her. The women were too far away to be able to do anything but watch. Gripping their wooden spears, they just observed. As they were watching Kotei Hoshii being eaten, they heard a strange cry and saw one of the women running forward with her hands up, defenseless.

“You bear! Over here! There’s meat over here. Plague-diseased meat! This is all your damn fault.”

It was Nokobi Hidaka.

The shouting woman was running straight toward the feasting bear. She looked like she was crying, weeping as she wailed, though she was far enough way that Kayu Saitoh couldn’t be sure.

“What are you doing?” Kayu Saitoh yelled. “Get back. You’ll be eaten!”

But Nokobi Hidaka went up to the bear and smacked it on its big rump. This was to the surprise of all the women, but the bear was surprised most of all. The creature interrupted its meal to swipe at her with its front paw, and she went flying. Her front side was covered in blood. Kayu Saitoh started to run over to the fallen woman, but Kyu Hoshina held her back, so instead, she yelled Nokobi Hidaka’s name over and over. As if awakened by Kayu Saitoh’s calls, Nokobi Hidaka stood up unsteadily. But when she did, a long strand of her intestines spilled out from the gash in her abdomen. She caught the undulating mass in her arms and kept on running.

In a scratchy whisper, Hotori Oze said, “She’s … leading the bear.”

Nokobi Hidaka’s expression contorted in a fatalistic frenzy, and shouting something, she ran toward the bear. The beast tossed aside Kotei Hoshii’s corpse with its paw and turned its single eye upon Nokobi Hidaka, seeming to mark her as its next target. A loop of intestine dangled and flapped at her feet, until she ripped it out of herself and kept on running. The other women stood watching her, but when Masari Shiina yelled for them to get back to the clearing, they snapped out of their astonishment and rushed back to the open area.

“Bear … you damned monster,” Nokobi Hidaka panted. “Look, I’m over here. I’ve got the plague. Are you going to eat me, or what? I’ve got the plague, but you’ll eat me.” She managed a laugh. “I’ve got the plague, but you’ll eat me!”

She was staggering now and seemed to be having trouble seeing. Instead of heading toward the trap at the edge of the clearing, she was moving toward the manor. At first, the bear kept its distance, observing her from behind, but then, apparently realizing she posed no threat, it charged her. The impact tossed her into the air, where the rest of her intestines spilled out, and she dropped like an empty sack. Not stopping to watch, the bear turned and began to walk back to Tamishi Minamide and Kotei Hoshii’s corpses.

The other women, who had regrouped in the clearing, tasted frustration as the bear failed to act as they had expected. But then a wooden spear sailed down from the manor’s balcony. It struck the back of the bear’s head, and the beast stopped. At first, Kayu Saitoh was convinced that Mei Mitsuya had launched the spear, but then she remembered that Mei Mitsuya was already dead.

Instead, it was Kyu Hoshina standing on the balcony.

“Damn you, bear!” Kyu Hoshina shouted, throwing another spear. “What’s wrong, bear? You afraid? Come at me!”

Moving incredibly fast, the bear closed in on the manor. It crashed through the outer mud wall without slowing and slammed into the side of the building. The manor was sturdy and wasn’t going to break from a single attack, but cracks formed in the wall, and the entire structure shook unsteadily. Kyu Hoshina held her footing and swung at the bear’s head with another spear. The beast stood on its hind legs and pummeled the balcony and the second floor walls. After two, and then three strikes, several logs fell, and floorboards snapped, and the balcony collapsed with a terrible sound.

Hono Ishizuka’s lips trembled as she watched the building go down. “Ah, the manor … the manor …”

The bear threw itself at the manor one more time, and in a cloud of dust and snow, the largest building in Dendera collapsed. Kyu Hoshina crawled out from the wreckage, but pieces of wood had pierced her arms and shoulders, and both her eyes had been crushed. But still, she forced herself to stand and tried to move away, but the bear jabbed its claws through her back.

As Kyu Hoshina died, two other figures moved. They were Hikari Asami and Ate Amami. The two women ran to the destroyed manor, stood in the bear’s path as if to block the creature, and readied their spears. The bear let out a loud roar, its foamy spittle a sign that its mind had given way to the call of battle, then charged the two women. Hikari Asami dove to the side, just barely dodging the attack, but Ate Amami was trampled, the beast’s four powerful legs crushing most of her body. Hikari Asami quickly picked herself up, threw her spear at the bear to draw its attention, and ran as fast as she could to the clearing. Foam streamed from the bear’s maw as it chased after her.