Sisters of the Sword (4 page)

Hana glanced up at me and mouthed silently,
Someone's coming!

I reached out a hand and quietly gripped the hilt of my
nihonto
. I was ready to defend us both, to the death if need be.

The footsteps crept closer. Silently I slid my sword from its scabbard.

I crept toward the entrance, held my breath, and waited…

Suddenly the intruder loomed in the open doorway. Moonlight glinted on his elaborate iron samurai helmet and I knew that this was one of Uncle's men. Before I could make a move, he shot out an
arm and grabbed my throat. His fingers were like a steel vice around my neck as he dragged me out of the shrine. I began to choke.

I staggered but he kept me upright, his face so close to mine that I could smell the fish on his breath. I stared into his battle-hardened face and the long red scar that puckered one corner of his mouth, and realized that this was the samurai who had crept along the corridor to my mother's chamber earlier. My hand gripped tighter on the hilt of my sword.

“I've been tracking you silly girls since you left the banqueting hall.” He sneered. “And you never suspected a thing.” He sniggered, a nasty, low, rasping sound, and tightened his grip on my throat.

I couldn't breathe. Blood pounded in my ears.

As he raised the point of his sword to my throat he whispered, “I will be well rewarded for killing you!”

“N
ot as easy as you think,” I gasped.

I flung my sword up toward his head.

The sharp edge near the hand guard sliced easily through the leather flap at the side of his helmet. Crimson blood spurted from the side of his face and for a moment he was blinded, shrieking in agony. His grip on my throat loosened and I twisted away.

He staggered toward me, blinking the blood from his eyes. I half turned, moving fast, and jerked my elbow up under his chin. His head snapped back and my sudden small victory gave me courage. Power surged through my limbs as I leaped forward into the air, my foot swinging up to deliver a hard kick—

But the samurai stepped behind me and grabbed my shoulder. He pulled hard and all at once I was falling! I landed flat on my back in the dirt, the breath knocked from my body.

With a sneer of triumph, he brought his boot down
hard on my sword arm. Pain lanced through me.

“You will die on my blade,” the samurai muttered, black eyes glittering from the shadows beneath his helmet.

I struggled and tried to break free, but I was trapped. Somewhere nearby, I heard the metallic whisper of another sword being drawn.
Had more samurai come for us?

Suddenly I caught a glimpse of a pale figure running from the shadows of the shrine, hands clasped together around the hilt of a silvery blade, silky black hair trailing behind.
Hana!
She sprinted across the clearing and swung at the old soldier.

The samurai cursed and twisted like a cat to face her, stepping off my arm. He deflected her attack with his blade, and the clash of steel echoed through the forest.

I scrambled to my feet. The samurai's back was to me, so I rushed at him with a downward slice of my sword. He must have heard me coming because he stepped away, and I could only catch him with a sharp slash to the forearm.

The samurai howled and turned with a fast, high, sideways slice but I ducked before it could take my head off my shoulders. I had hit him twice now.

Moonlight flashed on flat steel. Hana came at him from the other side but he deflected her blow. As he moved, I saw the leather laces that held the
steel plates of his armor together pull apart to reveal his patterned kimono. Beneath would be his flesh. The perfect place to strike…

As if he sensed my intent, the samurai turned and came at me in a roaring attack, sword whirling above his head. He had murder in his eyes, and in that instant I knew that his would be a fatal blow. “Victory!” he yelled.

Without hesitation, I stepped to the side and flung my weapon up to knock his away. The force sent shudders jarring down my arm.

The samurai's own weight and the ferocity of his charge brought him forward, bellowing. Quickly I dropped down on one knee and plunged my sword into his side. My sharpened steel slipped cleanly into the gap between the plates of armor—and my blade was buried in his flesh.

He turned toward me in surprise and for a moment we stared at each other, eye to eye, his hot breath whistling into my face. “I may bleed,” he hissed, “but I won't die. Not until I've killed you!” Then he rammed his body farther onto my blade.

The samurai gasped for breath, sending a fine spray of blood across my face. I let out a horrified cry.

He raised his sword and would have brought it swinging down, its silver arc aimed for my head. But abruptly Hana was there, her
nihonto
swirling
through the air. Her blade sliced through the samurai's wrist.

He howled in agony as his severed hand fell to the ground. His eyes bulged. I could feel his weight dragging on my sword, twisting the blade inside him even more. “You won't last long…,” he rasped. “He will find you.”

Gulping back my horror, I staggered backward and my blade came free.

The samurai fell to his knees, both hands clutching at his side. A single labored breath wheezed from between his lips, then his eyes glazed. He toppled sideways onto the ground and then was still.

For a moment the world seemed to swing around me. Reeling, I looked for Hana. She was standing a few paces away, her eyes wide with shock. Our eyes met and locked. Hers were black whirlpools of confusion and despair. She tore her gaze away and looked down at her bloodied sword hanging limply in her hand. Without warning her knees buckled….

I dropped my own sword and leaped toward her, catching her just before she hit the ground. Gently I lowered her down.

“We k-killed him, Kimi,” she stammered.

“We had to,” I told her fiercely. “Otherwise
he
would have killed
us
!”

The moon disappeared behind a bank of ragged
cloud and the clearing was plunged into shadow. Hana's hand groped for mine and we clung to each other in the darkness.

“Our lives will never be the same,” she whispered at last.

I swallowed hard. “We have a future, though,” I said firmly. “Once we find Mother and Moriyasu.”

All around us, a breeze stirred through the trees. Hana sprang away from me, staring wildly into the blackness.

“Someone's there!” Hana whispered. “Uncle has sent more men to look for us. They'll find us, and kill us—”

“No one's there,” I interrupted. I glanced over my shoulder, scanning the trees until I was sure. “It's just the wind.”

Beside me, Hana shuddered. I turned back to her. “Hana, be strong. We mustn't let ourselves be overcome by sadness or pain.”

She buried her face in her hands and began to cry. She looked so broken. How could I help her?

“Do you remember that little lacquered box we used to keep on a shelf in our room?” I asked, gently stroking her hair. “It had a golden willow tree on the lid….”

For a moment I thought she hadn't heard me, but then she took her hands away from her face and looked up at me. Tears glistened on her cheeks, but
she wasn't crying anymore.

“Imagine that you hold that box in your hands now,” I told her. “Imagine yourself opening it up and packing all your fear and sadness inside. Close the lid, Hana, and put the box away on a high shelf…in a dark place where you can't see it.” I took her hands and held them tight. “Leave the box there with your fear packed away. Now we know nothing of fear. Only survival. We must get away from here, go to the town, and somehow find Mother and Moriyasu.”

Hana closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, her face was strong. “We'll survive,” she said. “And strike down those who bring dishonor to the name of Yamamoto.”

I nodded. For a moment I gazed around at the land that used to belong to our father. To our family.
Yamamoto
…the name seemed to echo in my mind, whispered through the trees around the clearing. All at once, I realized that Uncle had even stolen our name. Hana and I could no longer be Yamamoto.

“We must forget who we are,” I said. “Leave the name of Yamamoto behind when we leave this place.”

“Why?” Hana stared at me, her eyes wide. “What do you mean?”

“Because our name will make it too easy for Uncle's soldiers to find us,” I explained. “We can no longer be the daughters of the
Jito
.”

“But how can we stop being daughters of the
Jito
?” Hana asked, smoothing the front of her sea-green kimono with trembling hands. “People will know who we are just by looking at us.”

I stared at her for a moment as the thoughts chased one another through my mind. Then a sudden flash of inspiration hit me. “We'll disguise ourselves,” I said eagerly. “Change our clothes…make our faces dirty…” I clenched my fist and glanced across at the dead samurai. “Uncle's men will be looking for two
girls
. So we'll become
boys
. We'll twist up our hair into topknots, just like our—” I broke off and swallowed hard. I had been about to say,
Just like our brothers do.
As if they were still alive. “Just like our brothers
did
,” I finished helplessly.

Hana reached out and clasped my hand. “That's a good idea,” she said. “If anyone asks, we can say we're the sons of a poor farmer on our way to the town to look for work.”

I glanced across at the dead samurai and swallowed hard. “Could you bear to put on some of his clothes?”

She was silent for a moment, her eyes fixed on my face. Eventually she nodded. “I'll do what I have to,” she said firmly.

I got to my feet and went over to the dead samurai. His helmet was tipped back away from his face, his mouth stretched wide as if he'd died crying out.

I dropped to my knees and reached out with my hands, half expecting him to snarl at me, or sit up and thrust a blade into my heart. I knew I had killed this man, but somehow it didn't seem real.

Hana came to kneel beside me. “Here, let me help you,” she said, and placed her hands over mine. Together we began to unlace his hardened leather armor.

“Can we use this?” Hana asked, weighing the heavy breastplate in her hands. “It might protect us.”

I shook my head. “Farmers' sons don't wear armor,” I said regretfully. “But we can use most of his clothes.”

Quickly we tossed aside the breastplate and the samurai's heavy sleeve armor. Underneath, his kimono jacket was patterned blue and black, with short sleeves and a narrow sash. His
hakama
trousers were gray, tied in at the knee, and full of lice.

Hana made a face and held them at arm's length. “These are disgusting!”

“And I always thought the life of a samurai soldier was glamorous!” I muttered, managing a grin.

I sat back on my heels and spread the kimono jacket out across the ground. It was covered in blood and had a slit where my sword had gone through. “We'll take everything down to the stream and wash it,” I said. “It's a warm night and the
clothes will dry as we wear them.”

We scooped up the clothes, gathered our swords, and made our way through the trees to the stream. There was soft moss beneath my knees as I kneeled down and washed the blood from the kimono. Hana scrubbed at the
hakama
trousers with a handful of grit from the streambed. It was a relief to lose ourselves in the simple task.

Quickly I stripped down to my own blue cotton
hakama
trousers and put on the kimono. The wet fabric clung to my skin like icy fingers as I folded it carefully to hide the slit. I firmly knotted the sash around my waist, then sheathed my
nihonto
and fastened it into the sash next to Moriyasu's little wooden sword. Finally I tied my long hair up into a tall topknot the way I had seen my brothers arrange theirs.

When I had finished, I helped Hana take off her sea-green silk and replace it with the dead samurai's plain gray
hakama
. The cold fabric made her shiver. “I'm glad it's a warm night,” she said as she finished tying her hair into a topknot.

I nodded. “We're lucky it's almost spring and not the middle of winter.”

Underneath her kimono Hana was wearing a white undershirt, but it looked too clean against the dull gray of the samurai's
hakama
so I scooped up
moss and mud to smear across the sleeves and collar.

“There…,” I said at last, standing back to gaze at her in the half light of the moon. “You do look like a boy.”

“So do you.” Hana reached up and briefly touched her hair. “What should we do with our own clothes?” she asked. “Should we bury them?”

“No, we haven't got time. Let's sink them in the stream.”

Together we wrapped our old clothes around heavy rocks and shoved them under the water, tucking them beneath an overhanging lip of earth where they wouldn't be found. I couldn't help but think that in abandoning my robes, I was also abandoning the last remnants of my identity as a Yamamoto lady.

When the clothes had sunk from sight, I made a silent promise that one day I would reclaim my family name and honor.

Whatever it took.

Then I reached for my sister's hand—our journey had begun.

A
fraid that we might meet more of Uncle's samurai, we stayed away from the pathways that cut through the forest. As we walked, the tangled undergrowth and branches tore at our hair and clothes. We kept the moon on our right hand side, and used a single star to guide us west, toward the town.

Soon our ravaged home was far behind us.

The only sound was the occasional scrabble of an animal or the hoot of an owl. As we walked, I thought about Mother and Moriyasu. Were they far ahead of us? Had they found a horse or had someone helped them? Were they injured or did Mother have everything under control?

Sometime during the night the moon disappeared and darkness closed in around us. My straw sandals broke and I had to go barefoot. My belly was tight with hunger, my mouth parched. Hana trudged bravely beside me, her head down, wrapped in her own thoughts.

At last we found ourselves standing hand in hand at the edge of the trees on the crest of a steep hill. Dawn was just breaking across the eastern sky, pink and bright.

Below us stretched rice fields where farmers in flat straw hats were already paddling through the shallow silver water to tend their crops. A narrow dirt road lined with small bamboo groves snaked away to the right and disappeared behind a series of low hills. Tiny huts were clustered at the side of the road with smoke rising from square holes cut into the thatched roofs.

Hana sniffed the air. “I can smell rice boiling,” she said. “And fish soup. Do you think the villagers would share their food with us?”

“They might if we offer to do a few jobs,” I said. “We could work in return for a meal.”

Our hearts full of hope, we stepped out from the shelter of the trees and began to make our way down the hill toward the village.

We had almost reached the road when the air was filled with the thunderous sound of horses' hooves—and all at once a mass of samurai horsemen came galloping around a bend in the road. The rising sun behind them glittered from the tips of their spears and from the quivers of arrows strapped to their backs.

Hana grabbed my sleeve. “Uncle's men!” she whispered frantically, and we made a dash for the nearest grove of bamboo.

We crouched in the dust as the horsemen galloped closer and closer. Had they seen us? And if they did, would our disguises fool them into believing that we were just two simple boys?

I held my breath. Hana's fingers dug hard into my arm. The horsemen drew level, their horses' hooves drumming the earth. But they passed us by, only reining in when they reached the village.

Hana and I watched through the fronds of bamboo as a few women and children came hurrying out of their houses. They fell to their knees in the dirt, bowing low.

Several of the samurai leaped off their horses. Harsh voices echoed on the breeze, carrying across the dusty road to where we were hiding. Hana and I were just close enough to hear what they were saying.

“Has anyone passed through here this morning?” asked one of the samurai. I could see he was a captain by the red silk sash tied around his upper arm. “We're looking for slaves, runaways from the
Jito
's household who are accused of stealing. They must be captured and punished.”

Hana and I looked at each other indignantly.
Uncle was telling everyone that we were thieves!

Across the road, an old woman lifted her head from the dirt. “We've seen no travelers since yesterday morning,” she said.

The captain of the samurai stepped closer to her and put the toe of his boot beneath her chin, lifting her face so that he could stare down at her. “Think carefully, old woman,” he snarled, “because if you're lying it will mean death for you—and for your family.” His hand went to the hilt of his sword.

“I swear!” the old woman wailed. “I've seen no one.”

The captain glared down at her for a moment longer, then abruptly let her go and signaled to his soldiers. They swarmed through the village and searched the houses. Bedding was tossed out into the mud. Pots and pans clattered. Children ran to their mothers.

I seethed with rage. These people didn't deserve this! I wanted to leap up, dash out of the shelter of the bamboo, and attack the nearest samurai with my sword. But against all of them it would mean certain death. And besides, Hana had her hand on my arm to restrain me. She knew me so well.

The farmers began to hurry back across the paddy fields, wading through the water. One man who seemed like the head villager began to shout angrily, waving his arms as he approached.

The captain of the samurai waited until the head villager drew near. I saw his hand drift to the hilt of his sword.

A samurai never draws his sword unless he intends to use it,
I thought, my heart beginning to race.

Calmly the captain grabbed his sword and swept his blade sideways in a glittering arc to slice the man's head from his shoulders. It hit the ground with a dull
thunk.

Beside me, Hana sucked in her breath. “Why?” she whispered, as the sound of wailing carried across the road to us.

“I think it's a lesson,” I said grimly. “They want the villagers to know what happens to anyone who might help us. We can't go down there, Hana. Not even after the samurai have gone. No one will help us now….”

We waited until the samurai had galloped away. The villagers carried the dead man inside the nearest house and soon the place was deserted.

“Let's go back to the trees,” I whispered to Hana.

Quickly we slipped out from the cover of the bamboo grove, feeling vulnerable as we scrambled back up the slope. Soon we were back in the safety of the forest. No one could see us now, even if they were looking.

In silence we skirted the hillside, keeping the
village on our right. I wanted to get as far away from those soldiers as I could. As we walked, I wondered how we would survive without shelter or food. How far away was the town—a day's walk?

“We'll sleep during the day,” I told Hana as we trudged through the undergrowth. “Walk by night and pray that we come across another stream or river where we can get water. Maybe we'll find some mushrooms and berries in the forest to eat. We have to be invisible.”

Hana nodded. Her eyes were dark with exhaustion and I knew we had to sleep soon. But where?

On the other side of the hill, the forest curved downward away from us and then swept up in an endless carpet of lush green. Just visible among the trees on the brow of the next hill was a complex of curving red rooftops.

Was that a pavilion? Or—

“A dojo!” Hana cried breathlessly. “A samurai training school!”

There was only one dojo in this part of the province—Master Goku's. The school my brothers had attended. “We could go to the gates and beg for food,” I said.

“But what if Uncle's samurai have gotten there before us?” Hana asked.

I bit my lip, thinking for a moment. “They were
heading north, toward the town,” I reasoned. “This is in the opposite direction.”

“That's a big risk to take,” Hana said, frowning. “What if Uncle sent out more than one search party?”

I gazed across the green valley to the curving red rooftops. Something seemed to draw me there, as if a silent voice was telling me that this was our chance to disappear. Our brothers had been students at this school, and Father before them. If they had still been alive, then this is where they would have been heading today, because this had been the first stop on their tour of the province.

Perhaps it was karma for Hana and me to come across the dojo.

Harumasa and Nobuaki had described their daily life to me so often that I knew their schedules by heart. They had endured hours of rigorous training alongside a hundred other boys, as well as a strict timetable of Zen studies. I had been thrilled by their tales of hand-to-hand combat and their eager discussions about battle tactics, weapons training, and martial skills. From dawn until dusk they did little else but fight, which meant that a dojo was the last place that Uncle's men would come looking for two noble young ladies.

Slowly a plan began to form in my mind.

“If we presented ourselves at the gate as two poor
farm boys seeking to train under a great master, then maybe we could do more than find food there.” I spoke quickly to keep pace with my train of thought. “Perhaps we could stay longer…have a roof over our heads until Uncle's soldiers gave up their search. We would be
safe
.”

Hana nodded, her face brightening. “Staying at the dojo would give us time,” she acknowledged. “We can think of what to do next, and how we're going to find Mother and Moriyasu.”

“And if we prove ourselves worthy of training,” I went on, “there might be a chance for us to improve our sword skills. Then, if we are given an opportunity to challenge Uncle, we'll be able to show him exactly what happens to those who disgrace the name of Yamamoto.”

“Do you think it will work?” Hana asked. She put up a hand and touched her topknot. “Do we
really
look like boys, Kimi?”

“Of course we do,” I said firmly. “We'll be very careful, talk in deeper voices, and make sure we don't make the slightest mistake to give anything away.”

“Okay.” Hana reached out to grasp my hand. “Let's try,” she said, and began to lead the way.

Fresh breezes stirred the trees as we hurried down one hill and up the next, following a dusty road that wound through the forest like a brown
ribbon. A flock of cranes flew overhead, reminding me of one of the paintings on the silk screens at home, but I pushed the memories away…and at last we came to the dojo.

A high stone wall ran alongside the road and in the middle, an enormous solid wood gate stood at least three times the height of a man. Two guards in leather armor stood at attention, one on each side, glittering spears in their hands. They glared at us from beneath the peaks of their iron helmets as we stepped out from the shadow of the trees.

I took a deep breath and put my hand on the hilt of Moriyasu's little wooden sword to give me courage. Then I stepped toward the nearest guard.

His hand tightened on his spear and for a moment I thought he was going to lower it and run me through—

But just then, a small door set into the gates flew open.

I gulped back my relief as three boys of my own age came tumbling out through the doorway, laughing and jostling one another, the hems of their long black
hakama
trousers swirling in the dust.

One of them had a long, ornate sword fastened tightly at his waist by a blue silk sash. He had clever dark eyes, wide cheekbones, and a firm mouth. And even though I had not seen him for almost five years,
he looked enough like his father for me to know that this was my cousin Ken-ichi—the only son of my treacherous uncle Hidehira.

My skin turned cold with fear.