Samurai Son (42 page)

Chapter Eighty

“Kasumi!” Akira exclaimed, angry at himself for leaving her.
 
One of the ninja threw shuriken at him, and he parried them out of the way before cutting him down.
 
The second ninja attacked, thrusting his sword forward.
 
Akira slipped Windspirit over the blade and chopped off half the ninja’s hand with a clean slice.
 
The man screamed and disappeared with a flash-bang.

Akira ran toward the sounds of battle and beheld a dreadful sight.
 
Kasumi was in tiger form, being attacked by three more ninja.
 
One had a kusarigama—a kama with a chain attached—that he had wrapped around the tiger’s paws.
 
Another had thrown shuriken and one was sticking out of the tiger’s hind leg.
 
But Kasumi had injured one of the ninja and killed a fourth, who was lying on the ground beneath her.
 
Two more bodies lay strewn about the forest.

Akira charged into the fight, swinging Windspirit with as much power and skill he could muster.
 
The sword came alive in his hands, cutting into the first ninja and parrying the kusarigama as the ninja tried to cut him down with the kama.
 
The no-dachi flashed and sliced cleanly through the chain that held the tiger.
 
Akira parried the kama, and the ninja disappeared with a flash-bang.
 
With a roar, Kasumi leaped on the third ninja and clawed him.
 
The man screamed and struggled to get away, but Kasumi ripped into him with her hind claws, tearing deeply until there was little left.

Akira turned away, sickened by the sight.
 
He knew this wasn’t the reaction a Tengu or a samurai should have, yet the man’s death was far more bloody than the clean cut of a samurai’s blade.

You’ll learn to accept it,
Windspirit said.

Akira was not so certain.
 
Several ninja bodies lay strewn around them, many of them mangled by Kasumi’s claws.

Kasumi, while still in tiger form, turned and snarled at him.
 
Where’s my sword?

Akira bit back a remark.
 
“I don’t know.
 
We’d better get out of here.”

Not without my sword and pack.
 
Find them.
 
She turned around and with a swish of her tail, slid into the brush.
 
Akira stared after her, noting the pronounced limp.
 
His stomach churned with conflicting emotions: he felt guilty leaving her to the ninja, but he was infuriated at her treatment of him.
 
He was samurai, just like she.
 
Only they really weren’t.
 
He was half Tengu, and she was Neko.

Half Neko,
corrected Windspirit.
 
Her father is Naotaka.

She still shouldn’t treat me like a peasant,
Akira said to the sword as he began nudging the bodies, looking for her stuff.
 
It didn’t take him long to find her pack and swords; the first moon had risen over the horizon, and her katana’s blade caught the light.
 
He picked up the sword and carefully sheathed it.
 
He wrapped the obi around it and picked up her clothing.
 
The silken tunic and hakama caught on his rough fingers, feeling oddly soft.
 
He picked up her tabi and sandals and walked to the brush where she had disappeared.

“Kasumi,” he whispered.
 
“Are you all right?
 
I found your pack.”

Leave it there and keep watch.
 
I want some privacy.

Akira laid the bundle down, walked over to a tree nearby, and leaned against it, looking out for ninja.
 
He heard Kasumi move to pick up her pack—uncharacteristic of her, given her Neko blood.
 
Her footfalls were heavier with one step than the other.
 
He almost turned around but caught himself.
 
“How bad is that wound?” he whispered.
 
“Can I help?”

I’m fine,
Kasumi said, her voice strained.
 
He could hear her limping away.

You don’t sound fine,
he remarked in mindspeak.
 
He heard a sharp growl then a gasp of pain.
 
Akira hesitated for a moment before rushing into the brush.
 
He found her lying in the brush with her tunic on, which covered her to mid-thigh, trying to grasp and pull out the shuriken.
 
The throwing star gleamed wickedly in the moonlight and there was blood all over her pale thigh.

She looked up and snarled at him.
 
“Go away!”

“No,” he said, staring at the wound.
 
It looked ugly to him, and he couldn’t imagine how she could walk with it.
 
“You need to get that out somehow.”

“I can do it without you.
 
It’s not that deep.”

I doubt she can,
Windspirit said.
 
She’ll need you to help dress it.

I’ve never bandaged anyone with anything like this,
Akira reminded him.

I can get you through the basics.

Akira nodded and started forward.
 
Kasumi hissed and held out her hands to block him, but he gently pushed them aside and reached out for the shuriken.
 
A growl escaped Kasumi’s lips as he touched the sharpened edges.
 
“I can try to pull it out,” he said.

She’ll need to apply pressure once it comes out.
 
Windspirit’s voice was strangely reticent.

Akira relayed Windspirit’s recommendation without crediting the sword and grasped the star by the flat sides.
 
He pulled it out as quickly as possible as Kasumi snarled and held the pressure.
 
To her credit, she didn’t scream as the blood welled up.
 
Kasumi motioned to her bag.
 
Akira dug into it and found an old tunic of rough material.
 
He tore the shirt into strips and wrapped them tightly around the wound.
 
“We have to find a doctor to sew this up,” he said, repeating the sword’s words.
 
“It won’t heal properly otherwise.”

“In case you didn’t notice, we’re on Shinobi-jima with an island full of angry ninja after us,” Kasumi said.
 
“Turn around; I’m putting on my hakama.”

Akira dutifully turned around, wondering why the sudden modesty.
 
He had seen her completely naked.
 
His thoughts strayed to her body pleasantly when Rokuro’s voice interrupted him.
 
You shouldn’t be thinking about that, boy.

Akira smiled slightly.
 
And what should I be thinking about?

How you’re going to get off this island alive.

Akira was about to retort when Kasumi limped beside him, fully dressed.
 
“Come on,” she said, leading him into the dark forest.

Chapter Eighty-One

“We’re being followed.”
 
Akira frowned as he looked behind him.
 
They had been walking all day, with frequent rest breaks, but Kasumi’s injury and rationing their food had made it difficult going.
 
No doubt the ninja were still searching for them, but they had seen nothing of the Shinobi for hours.

Kasumi turned and scanned the darkening forest.
 
The pines and coniferous trees threw the path behind them into a premature twilight as the sun slipped behind the mountain.
 
She took a slow breath in to try to catch the scent of whatever was on her nostrils.
 
“Are you certain?” she whispered.

Akira nodded slowly.
 
“I saw movement a quarter mile back.”

Peering through the trees, she could see nothing that far and catch the scent of little more than the soft earth and the warm pines.

“I smell nothing,” she said, not bothering to hide her skeptical tone.

“Could it be Tenko?”

After their fight with the ninja, Kasumi had acquiesced to going forward, despite not finding the little kitsune.
 
She felt a pang of remorse, leaving the fox, but there were too many enemies, and if they didn’t move quickly, the ninja would find them again and most likely kill them.
 
Her leg hurt badly, and she walked with a pronounced limp, despite trying to hide it from Akira.
 
Even now she could feel the trickle of blood down her leg, and she wondered how long she could keep up this pace without much food.

Changing into a tiger took energy, and the battle had worn her down to the point where she would have to kill and feed soon as a tiger.
 
“Tenko smells.
 
This doesn’t.
 
Listen, boy, are you sure that you saw something?”

He did not rise to her bait.
 
Instead, he shrugged and glanced backward with an enigmatic smile.
 
“It might be a demon.
 
I don’t recognize it as mortal or kami.”

Kasumi felt the hairs rise on her skin, and she shivered to make them lie back down.
 
She snuffed the air again and shook her head.
 
“What would you know of demons, Tengu?”

Akira shrugged.
 
“Not much, I suppose.”

“My family has fought the oni over the millennia.
 
We guard the demon gate in the northeast.”
 
She glared at him haughtily.

“Have you ever fought an oni?”

The question stung, even though it might have been an innocent one.
 
Akira showed no emotion within his dark eyes, and Kasumi was unsure whether it was a rebuke or an honest question.
 
She felt her hackles rise and forced herself into a sneer.
 
“I’ve
seen
several.”

Akira nodded.
 
“Then you would recognize one if you smelled it?”

“I don’t smell oni.”

Now it was Akira’s turn to frown, and Kasumi waited for the challenge, but he said nothing.
 
Kasumi wondered if he was going to doubt her senses but thought better of it, seeing as it would launch them into another argument.
 
“It’ll be dark soon,” he said at last.
 
“I don’t want to spend the night outdoors if we can help it.
 
With ninja, Tengu, and who knows what, I would just feel safer under a roof.”

“Agreed,” she said.
 
It was the first sensible thing he had said since she met him.
 
She knew she could take care of herself, but she doubted he could do much with that ridiculously long sword.

They continued walking down what could have been called a road at one time but was now a simple footpath.
 
Kasumi let Akira lead, pausing occasionally to snuff the air and look behind them with her catlike vision.
 
Once or twice, she thought she caught movement out of the corner of her eye, but as she turned her head to look directly at whatever it was, it disappeared in the shadows.

“Akira,” she said when she caught a glimpse of it a third time.

He turned around in time to see the shadow fade into the bushes.

“What is it?”

“Okami—a wolf,” Akira said softly.
 
“Can’t you smell it?”

She swallowed hard and grimaced.
 
“No,” she said.
 
“It has no smell.”
 
She paused.
 
“Why is it following us?”

He shrugged.
 
“Maybe it is hungry.
 
I think we’ll be all right.
 
A small wolf would be no match for either of us.”

He turned and started ahead but Kasumi paused.
 
“Wait,” she said.
 
Akira waited as she pulled out a rice cake and laid it on the ground in an offering.
 
“Okami,” she knelt down and called to the wolf.
 
“Okami, are you hungry?
 
Have some food.”

She looked up at Akira, who showed neither reproach nor approval.
 
“The wolf is good luck.”
 
She stood up and dusted off her hakama.
 
“Let’s go.”

Akira led the way, but night was approaching rapidly.
 
Soon they were walking in the near darkness of a moonless night with the sounds of the crickets and other night creatures and the light from the stars to keep them company.
 
Their way was slow going, even with their night vision, because there was so little light.
 
The landscape looked flat in the shades of gray and shadows.
 
Kasumi was certain, more than once, that she saw a shift in the shadows.
 
She turned around, her hand on the pommel of her katana, expecting to see some sort of demon come at them in the night.

Akira said nothing, but she could see he was bearing her nervousness patiently, and it made her angry.
 
She knew he was patronizing her, allowing her to jump at every shadow and snapped twig.
 
Her next turn made him pause, and when she saw nothing, she rounded on him.
 
“Don’t you see it?” she said.
 
Her voice growled with a throaty menace and echoed in the quiet forest.

Akira arched an eyebrow at her, not impressed by her outburst.
 
He looked down the path, following her gaze.
 
“I saw nothing, save the wolf, and I haven’t seen him in a while.”
 
He fell silent and gazed into the trees, his brow furrowed.

“What?” Kasumi asked in a lowered voice.
 
“Do you hear something?”

“No, but that’s the problem.”
 
Akira looked around.
 
“It was noisy back there.
 
It’s quiet here.”

Kasumi listened.
 
Not even the wind spoke its gentle whispers through the dark pines.
 
She shivered.
 
She almost hoped for the okami.
 
Akira shook his head to her unasked question.
 
“I don’t know but I don’t want to stay here any longer than we have to.
 
I would feel safer if we were under a roof with a stout door.”

Kasumi agreed silently.
 
She couldn’t run as fast as she could normally.
 
With her hand on her pommel, she followed Akira as he led her down the overgrown path.
 
Her stomach rumbled, letting her know that she had not eaten much since the previous day, and she was tiring rapidly.
 
She kept turning her head, expecting to see something appear within the shadows, but there was nothing.
 
She was so busy keeping watch that she almost ran into Akira when he stopped.

“What the...” she began then fell silent.
 
Before them was a large wall made of stone.
 
The trees in this desolate forest were so overgrown that they had shielded the wall from even their sight.
 
“What is it?”
 
She stared at the moss-covered stones, overgrown with vines and ivy.

“I don’t know,” said Akira.
 
He ran his hand along the wall, and some of the stone crumbled.
 
“It’s been here awhile, if I may hazard a guess.
 
Maybe it’s a temple.”

“But it’s here, in the middle of the path.”
 
Kasumi glared at the wall.
 
“It shouldn’t be here at all.”

Akira chuckled.
 
“Maybe you should tell the wall that.”
 
He stomped on the vegetation along the wall and cleared a small path with his feet.
 
“I think the path went this way,” he said.
 
“Maybe there’s an entrance and we can spend the night here.”

Kasumi said nothing but something made her edgy and uneasy.
 
Perhaps it was her hunger, or perhaps it was because she had had such little sleep.
 
She snuffed the wind but smelled nothing unusual.
 
Still, she was afraid she would catch the scent of an oni.

“Come on,” Akira said, tugging at her sleeve gently.
 
“What’s wrong?” he asked, reflecting her worried look in his own features.

“I don’t know.
 
None of it feels right,” she whispered.
 
“I feel that if we enter this structure—whatever it is—we won’t see the morning.”

Akira frowned.
 
“I don’t want to stay outdoors; it isn’t safe.”

“I agree,” she said, “but not here.”

At that moment, the howl of a wolf pierced the air, sending shivers along Kasumi’s skin.
 
Akira cocked his head as though trying to determine where the sound came from.
 
“Come on.
 
Let’s go.
 
We have to get out of here.”

Kasumi nodded and followed him as he made his way swiftly through the forest.
 
Their arguments were moot now.
 
As much as it rankled her, she knew Akira was right.
 
One okami she could handle by herself, but she had not smelled the wolf, nor had it given her any indication of being anything mortal.
 
Oni, she recalled, were shape changers, just as Tengu and kami were.
 
The creature that followed them could indeed be a demon.
 
She didn’t know everything about demons, despite her Neko heritage.

She followed Akira as he followed the wall deeper into the forest.
 
The bamboo and conifers grew so thickly here that they could barely push their way through.
 
Then the wall fell away.
 
Akira halted and Kasumi did likewise.
 
She peered into the darkness then back at Akira.

She could barely make out his expression, but she could tell by his scent that he was anxious, maybe a little fearful.
 
She looked beyond the wall and saw that where they stood had been the gated entrance to a magnificent temple.
 
The gate doors had been torn asunder as though a mighty force had ripped them apart and tossed them aside.
 
She peered in and could see what was left of them: battered splinters overgrown by vegetation.

What’s more, the place smelled bad.
 
She frowned.
 
It felt wrong, like around the
Kimon
or around Nanashi’s home before he summoned the demon.
 
Yet she could not smell the oni here.

“This place is cursed.”
 
Akira summed up her feelings succinctly.
 
“I can’t sense wind spirits here; the air is stagnant.
 
It’s almost as if something is keeping them out.”

“Then let’s go,” she said.
 
“We’ll find somewhere else to sleep.”

Another howl interrupted them.
 
Akira looked askance.
 
She frowned again, trying to take in the feeling of the place.
 
As she did, she felt the hair along the nape of her neck prickle.
 
Kasumi turned slowly to see a ghostly flicker within the mist and two glowing amber eyes glint from the direction they had just come from.
 
She gasped and her hand strayed to her katana.