Sisters of the Sword (3 page)

I
dashed across the bedchamber and picked up Moriyasu's sword.

My thoughts tumbled over one another. My little brother would never have left his beloved training weapon behind on purpose. He must have dropped it as he and Mother rushed away! Just holding it in my hand gave me a feeling of hope. Could they have escaped?

Cautiously I peered out of the gap in the blinds. The covered walkway that led along the side of the bedchambers and down to the ornamental lake was empty. To my relief, there were no bodies and no sign of blood.

“Mother and Moriyasu must have climbed out this way,” I told Hana, tucking the little wooden sword into my sash. “Someone must have warned them. Come on, we must follow and see if we can find them.”

Hana didn't reply.

I turned around and saw that she had sunk to the floor in the far corner of our mother's room. She was crouching, half curled into a ball, shivering as she buried her face in her hands.

I hurried over to her and pulled her into my arms. “Be strong, Hana,” I whispered against her hair. “Just a little while longer. We'll find Mother and Moriyasu, and then everything will be all right….”

“No, it won't,” Hana said on a trembling breath. “Father is dead…Harumasa and Nobuaki are dead…things will never be all right again!”

“We must make them all right!” I said fiercely. “We have to get out of here, Hana. We have to survive and make sure that Uncle is punished for what he's done.” I gave her a little shake. “We must be brave and put our emotions aside for now.” I rested the back of my hand against her cheek. Her skin was cold. “Can you do that, Hana?” I asked. “Can you come with me to find Mother?”

She stared at me for a moment, her eyes so dark they were almost black. Then she nodded. “Swords,” she said. “We'll need our swords if we have to fight.”

“I'll go and get them,” I said. “Stay here. Don't move until I come back.”

The corridor was deserted and silent, but I could hear Uncle's soldiers nearby, tearing linen from the beds and slashing wall panels. They were searching
for us. Careful not to make a sound, I tiptoed next door to the bedchamber I shared with Hana. Here, tables had been tipped over and our clothes ransacked. It made my heart ache to see Hana's scrolls of poetry torn to shreds and left on the floor.

I moved quickly, desperate to get back to Hana as soon as I could, in case the soldiers came back to check our rooms again.

Swiftly I took our swords from their ornate stand. Fashioned from tempered steel, the
nihonto
were long and lethally sharp but light and easy to carry in their wooden
saya
scabbards. I headed for the door—

And froze.

I heard the light scuff of boot leather on a floor-board. Someone was coming!

Shrinking back against the wall, I held my breath. I closed my eyes and concentrated my mind, trying to remember the rules of self-control from my training. My heart hammered so loudly that I was sure whoever was out there would hear it.
Breathe,
I told myself.
And don't panic
.

Though I had practiced often, self-control was hard to find when a real enemy was approaching. I had never fought an opponent with the intention of hurting them, but these soldiers did not have wooden
bokken
. Their sharp blades would be fatal.

My heart slowed. I listened again, ears straining to catch the slightest sound. This time I heard nothing except the distant cries of dying servants. Had I been mistaken?

No. There it was again. A quiet, creeping footstep. I opened my eyes and risked a peep through a crack in the door. One of Uncle's samurai was making his way slowly along the corridor. He stopped abruptly, just outside the doorway to my mother's chamber—where my sister sat alone and defenseless.

My fingers gripped the two
nihonto
in my left hand, and I swore to myself that I would kill the samurai if I had to.

He moved again, his leather armor creaking softly, and I wondered whether I could draw my sword without the sound alerting him to my presence.

Suddenly a shout echoed along the corridor. “Rokuro! This way!”

The samurai glanced back over his shoulder. I caught a glimpse of his face, under the shadow of his helmet. He was old, battle-hardened, with wrinkled skin and a red scar that puckered one corner of his mouth. He was the samurai who fought Nobuaki in the banqueting room.

“Not yet,” he called back.

But a harsh voice insisted, “Now! Captain's orders.”

The samurai glanced back at the doorway to
Mother's room. He hesitated, and for a moment I thought he was going to disobey orders.

My right hand tightened on the hilt of my sword. Silently I began to slide it from its scabbard.

But all at once the samurai changed his mind. He turned away. His armor and weapons clinked as he broke into a trot and hurried back the way he'd come.

Relieved, I waited until I was sure he was gone. Then I darted along the corridor, keeping close to the wall.

Hana was waiting where I had left her, crouched low with her arms wrapped around her slender body. She flinched when I entered the room, her face white with fear. But when she saw that it was me—and that I was carrying our
nihonto
—relief washed over her face.

“I heard a voice,” she whispered.

“One of Uncle's samurai,” I muttered, kneeling beside her. “He's gone now, but we may meet others—and if we do, we must be prepared to fight.”

“I don't know if I have the strength.” Hana's voice was so weak I could barely hear her.

“You must find it, somehow.” I took her limp, cold hand and placed her sword firmly in her grip. I drew my own from its scabbard and weighed it in my hand, turning it this way and that so the steel caught
the light. A sensation of power and confidence stole over me.

“Come on, Hana,” I said quietly. “The safest way out is down by the lake. The path leads to the west gate, and eventually to the forest. We'll search for Mother and Moriyasu there.”

I checked that none of Uncle's soldiers were on the walkway outside the gap, and then gathered my long skirts and hurried through the debris. Hana came after me, her sword gripped tightly in her hand. Keeping low, we made a dash for the lake.

The gardens were swathed in shadows, and I could hear the samurai on the other side of the buildings, shouting when they found a survivor. Flames licked upward and tall columns of orange sparks swirled into the sky. By morning, our home would be nothing but a charred and smoldering ruin.

There was no sign of Moriyasu or my mother near the lake. The water was black and still, not a ripple marred the onyx surface. I shivered and glanced at Hana.

“We'll do as you said, Kimi,” she murmured. “The west gate…and then the forest.”

Swords in our hands, we skirted around the edge of the lake and took a curving path to the west gate. The place was deserted. Father's guards must
have rushed inside to join the fight against Uncle's samurai.

Hana and I hurried down the hill to the forest. But as we slipped among the trees, I heard a crashing sound in the darkness. Shouts echoed, and I knew that Uncle's men were nearby.

Stopping dead in my tracks, I tried to work out how many there were, and which way they were heading.

My heart sank as I realized a small army of Uncle's samurai were in the forest ahead.

And they were making straight for us!

Tightening my grip on my sword, I glanced back over my shoulder. The
shinden
and the buildings around it threw a curtain of crimson fire into the night sky. Even the rising moon looked blood red. We couldn't go back. But we couldn't go forward, either. I held my breath, trying to decide what to do.

An idea came into my mind like a whisper of soft summer wind.

The shrine
…

I glanced at Hana and she nodded, as if she had read my mind. The shrine was a secret place in the heart of the forest, dedicated to our family god, where I sometimes went alone to practice with my sword. Thinking of it gave me strength and courage.

Uncle's samurai were coming closer, not caring
who heard them as they crashed through the undergrowth. Grabbing Hana's hand, I cut to the left and stayed low, half crouching and half running through the shadowy forest. Around us, the trees crowded closer. Bark gleamed silver in the moonlight. Dry leaves rustled and whispered. Soon the sounds of the soldiers fell far behind, and we were alone.

I knew we were near the shrine because we came to the
torii
, the gateway that marks the start of a sacred place. Two tall, slender pillars supported a carved crossbar, the ends curving upward like the wing tips of a bird in flight.

Hana and I stepped beneath the
torii
. We made our way on until we crossed the little wooden bridge over the stream and at last reached the tiny, open-fronted pavilion at the edge of a clearing.

“I think we'll be safe here,” I murmured to Hana, sheathing my sword at last.

We bowed our heads and whispered a small prayer for the protection of our family, and then we stepped inside. There was a low wooden table with candles, a small iron lantern, and a scattering of yellow flowers and other offerings.

I noticed one offering had been misplaced. A small scroll had been rolled and hastily tied, without the careful knotting we usually used for luck, a hand's length away from the offering plate.

Hana dropped to her knees in front of the low table and gasped. She pointed to markings on the outside of the scroll that spelled out our names.

“It's for us,” she said breathlessly. “And it's Mother's handwriting.”

I glanced over her shoulder. Immediately I recognized the firm, confident sweeps of my mother's writing and I felt hope again.

Normally we would not touch an offering to the gods, but this seemed to have been put here for us. Hana carefully lifted the scroll and opened it slowly. “It's a poem.”

“A poem?” My heart fluttered. “What does it say?”

“
Old branches break above and die
…,” Hana read aloud, “
seedling grows thicker
…
the cherry blossom grows once more
…
new season begins
.”

“She would have known that we would come here if we managed to escape,” I said. I read the poem again, trying to understand. “
Seedling grows thicker
…I wonder what she was trying to tell us.”

“Moriyasu is the seedling,” Hana said slowly. “Mother is telling us that although our father and older brothers are gone, our youngest brother is still alive. He will grow, and so our family tree will survive.”

“Moriyasu is the future,” I said, nodding. I touched my fingers briefly to the hilt of his little wooden
sword, still tucked in my sash. “He is hope. The ‘new season' must mean winning back the seat of the
Jito
for Moriyasu, as Grandfather would have wished.”

We couldn't know for sure that this was what Mother's message meant. But we had to hope for something, Hana and I. Without hope, there was nothing but loss and pain.

Hana glanced back over her shoulder, through the open front of the shrine to the dark forest beyond. “We must follow Mother and Moriyasu,” she said. “But where do you think they've gone, Kimi?”

I thought for a moment. “Mother must know that Uncle will search for them as soon as he realizes they are not among the dead. Mother will need to go far away, to lose herself and Moriyasu…and what better place to become lost than in a crowded town?”

“Then the town is where we must go, too.”

I nodded. “We'll rest here for the night, and set out at dawn.”

Hana leaned forward. “We mustn't let the samurai see this,” she said. “Or they will carry the news of our plans back to Uncle.” She lit one of the offering candles and held the small scroll in the flame until it caught. She placed the burning paper on a stone plate and we watched as the orange flame turned our mother's parting message to black ash.

Once Mother's words were destroyed, I felt tiredness sweep through my body. I sank down and leaned against Hana, closing my eyes. At once images swarmed through my mind—the crimson stain spreading fast across my father's yellow silk robes…Harumasa's ashen face as he fell to the floor of the banqueting room…

And over those images echoed Uncle's last words to my father: “I honor my brother, the
Jito
,” he had said. “Just as I honor our Yamamoto ancestors.”

My heart ached as the memories washed over me, and silent tears ran down my face. How could Uncle have done this? Could he really be the same man who had taught me the
kata
? The laughing, affectionate uncle who had ridden on horseback with Hana and me, telling us stories of past battles? Desolation gripped me as I remembered one long-ago summer's day when our whole family had taken a picnic down to the river. Moriyasu had been a baby then, swaddled in a silk robe in Mother's arms. Hana and I had been little girls playing in the water, splashing our cousin Ken-ichi, while Uncle and Father had laughed and joked together on the riverbank. I could hardly believe how our family had been torn apart.

I felt Hana slip her arms around me, and soon her tears were wet on my shoulder. We wept for a
long time, kneeling at the shrine of our ancestors. Outside, the moon climbed high in the sky. The black of night grew deeper in the forest.

Eventually Hana and I curled up together on the mat. Lulled by the soothing sound of the nearby stream, we slept.

 

I sat bolt upright, heart pounding. I didn't know how long I'd been asleep, but something had woken me.

There! There was the sound again—a dry twig snapping under the weight of a heavy boot.

Beside me, Hana was leaning on one elbow, her eyes wide. Another branch cracked, and then came the unmistakable sound of creeping footsteps.